


Just Because She's on a Mission, Doesn't Mean She Can't Have a Little Fun

by orphan_account



Category: Agent Carter - Fandom
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Contemplating Murder, F/F, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, hate ships, plumbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:27:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3882313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What started as a smutty one-shot has now become a multi-chapter exploration of what might possibly happen if Peggy and Dottie actually had gotten involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [streepytime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/streepytime/gifts).



Just because she was on a mission, it didn’t mean she wasn’t allowed to have a little fun.

The wide-eyed girl from Iowa took a long pull from the vodka bottle on the nightstand beside her bed, cuffed her wrist to the bed with a click of cold metal, and turned out the light. Propped halfway up on her pillows, she lay in the dark, wondering whether her target liked to have a little drink before bed, too. She wondered whether her target got that warmth between her legs when she drank enough.

Idle curiosity, she thought. Purely academic. But she wondered. As the low meander of late-night traffic breathed by the window, three stories below, she wondered.

She wondered whether the target’s mouth (such a pretty, lush mouth, she thought) tasted like butterscotch candy and amaretto sours. She wondered if the target smelled like the French perfume she’d seen in the drawer of the vanity when she’d gone snooping in her room. She wondered what kind of noises her target made in bed when someone made her feel very, very good.

The wide-eyed girl from Iowa decided she needed to feel very, very good herself. She uncuffed her wrist.

After carefully unscrewing the J-pipe from its fittings underneath the kitchen sink, upsetting the rubber washer, and then running the water for a few seconds to leave a convincing puddle, she moved softly down the carpeted hall to to the target’s door.

 

**

When Peggy heard the knocking on her door, she immediately stiffened. She looked at the wind-up clock beside her bed. 1:27 a.m. She discreetly reached for her piece in the nightstand drawer. “Who is it?” she called sleepily.

“Peg?” came the voice of the innocent, wide-eyed girl from Iowa. “I’m sorry to wake you up, it’s Dottie.”

As if there was any mistaking her gee-whiz voice, Peggy thought with mild annoyance. “It’s quite late, Dottie. Is everything alright?”

“I’m sorry Peg, I got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen and it just started leaking underneath real bad!” 

She sounded genuinely distraught. Peggy sighed.

“I’m real sorry, Peg, but I just don’t know the first thing about plumbing and I’m just afraid Miriam’s gonna give me what-for if I go down there to bug her about it now.” Her voice took on a pleading tone. “Please, Peg, I didn’t know who else to ask, can you just come look at it? I’m just afraid it’s going to get worse if I leave it.”

Peggy sighed again. Poor Iowa. At least she’d come to the right place. Peggy knew her way around underneath a sink. She rolled out of bed, threw on a black silk dressing gown over the slip she was sleeping in, and dragged herself over to the door. She opened it to find Dottie standing there, in a thin, white nightie that stopped well above the knee. Her eyes flicked over Dottie’s strong, lean shape, and even in her sleepy state, something stirred in her stomach that made the decision for her. She gave a weary half-smile. “Alright, Dottie. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Gosh, thank you SO much!” Dottie exclaimed.

She followed Dottie back to her room, a few steps behind her, eyes lingering on Dottie’s strong-looking calves, the gracefully arched back, and the white silk nightie clinging to her firm backside. Peggy pursed her lips, swallowing a little smile. Dottie’s innocent routine could sometimes get a little tiresome, but Peggy couldn’t complain about the view. Just because she was on a mission, didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun.

When they got to Dottie’s apartment and entered the kitchen, she got down on her hands and knees and peered at the pipes jutting down from above. “OK Dottie,” she instructed, “run the water for a moment, I need to see where it’s leaking.”

Dottie turned the water on, and a spray of water shot out of the pipe fitting where it attached from the sink to the J-pipe, dousing Peggy in the face. 

“Stop! Turn it off!” she sputtered.

She unscrewed the fitting and saw that the washer seemed to have gotten unseated somehow. It was odd, since it didn’t appear damaged, but that was actually a positive, since she could simply reseat it and close the pipe back up and it should, in theory, hold together. She screwed the pipe fitting back in as tightly as it would go and tried to smear some of the plumber’s grease she’d gotten on her fingers back onto the pipe.

She stood up, ran the water again, and the pipe seemed to be holding. She turned to Dottie with what she hoped was a brisk smile, wiping her wet hands on her damp dressing gown, a few wet strands of hair sticking to her face. “There. You should be all sorted, now, Dottie.”

Dottie’s eyes lit up and she leaped forward at Peggy, threw her arms around her shoulders, and pulled her in for a very strong hug. “Thanks a lot, Peggy! You’re my hero!”

Peggy’s arms instinctively went around Dottie’s waist, as an automatic response the way they would if anyone hugged her. But then she remembered that the front of her clothing was all soaked from her efforts under the sink, and started to resist. “Dottie, I’m probably not in the best condition for a hug just now…”

Dottie’s blue eyes were still lit up as she pulled Peggy tightly to her. “Oh gosh,” she exclaimed softly, her voice still innocent, “you’re all wet.” She pulled back a little, but didn’t let go. Peggy was a little surprised to find that while her voice was still innocent, her smile wasn’t. She was looking at Peggy as if she were something to eat.

Peggy still had her arms hooked around Dottie’s waist, her dark eyes locked on Dottie’s blue ones, which had a piercing look that Peggy had never seen before. “Yes,” she answered evenly, but her voice was a little breathy. “I suppose I am a bit wet. It appears I’ve gotten you a bit wet as well.”

Dottie's grip was iron, and Peggy reminded herself that of course a ballet dancer was likely to be quite strong and fit. And Dottie Underwood was surely that. Through their night clothes, Peggy could feel her lean, muscular frame quite clearly. It felt good, like something she could grab onto and ride without breaking it. She became aware of Dottie moving against her, subtly, almost imperceptibly, but she felt it. Deliberate. Inviting. Peggy felt herself starting to respond.

"Gee, now we're both wet," Dottie sighed, "what are we going to do?"

Peggy slid a hand up into the blonde's curls. "Are there a lot of girls like you in Iowa?" she inquired, evaluating whether this was a bad idea or not.

"You mean dancers?" Dottie asked coyly, still not breaking her stare.

" Oh is that what this is, then? Dancing?" Peggy pulled Dottie's face to hers, and placed a hesitant kiss on her mouth. 

There was a hitch of breath as she did; there always was, in these situations, each woman waiting to see if they'd read things wrong and would send the other screaming for the hills. 

But Peggy had apparently read it right. Dottie immediately pushed herself deeper into the kiss, her teeth sinking into Peggy's lower lip and pulling at it, her tongue snaking into Peggy's mouth, hungry and determined. Peggy's hands found their way down Dottie's waist to her hips, which were moving against her less subtly now. For a moment, she was startled by the innocent Midwestern girl's aggressive kiss, but she quickly matched it, winding against that lean, muscled dancer's body; her hands slipped around Dottie's hips, around to her ass, gripping it. They stood there in the middle of the room, kissing hard and deep, rubbing up against each other for a few minutes (Peggy was hard pressed to say how long exactly). It was almost silent except for their thick breathing.

Peggy pulled back and looked at Dottie, still not quite believing how quickly this had happened. She'd never have guessed that when her body was ready for intimacy again, that this was who it would be ready for. But she was getting impossibly slick between her legs, and she heard the words slipping from her mouth almost as if someone else were saying them: "Shall we take this somewhere more comfortable?"

Dottie's eyes registered a strange victory. Peggy's gut suddenly hesitated, but then she found herself being pushed down onto Dottie's squeaky bed with its lumpy mattress, and it was too late to stop what she'd started. The blonde sat astride her, grinding her hips and pinning Peggy's wrists to the bed. Peggy bucked against her, aroused, faintly uneasy at having so misjudged the young dancer, but urged along by the heat in her sex, which was blinding, deafening.... It didn't care who this girl was as long as she made the aching, craving feeling stop.

 

***

They'd taught her many things as a young woman. Not just how to fight, how to kill, how to pass for red white and blue American. No, they'd taught her how to seduce, how to fuck. But they'd only taught her how to do this with men. She'd have to improvise.

But she found she didn't mind. She found she enjoyed the arousal in Peggy Carter's eyes, their heightened alertness as she realized that Dottie had her trapped... At this point, she'd only been told to watch Agent Carter, not kill her, but she could right now. She could put her hands around that soft, lily white throat, and choke the life right out of her, a thought that made the heat flare up between her own legs. Peggy Carter was hers now, to do with as she she wished.

She wanted to know. She let go of Peggy's wrists, slipped off of her, and, sitting between her legs, delicately pulled Peggy's black silk panties off. She could smell that perfume alright, but more than that, she could smell her. She could smell Peggy Carter's desire, and with a cool, slow, measured movement, she slipped her fingers into the soft, wet flesh and smirked as her target bit her lip and moaned. Good, she thought.

She moved with precision, noting every slight variation of pressure and its effects on the target. Peggy Carter biting her lips, gripping at the sheets, sighing "Yes, there.". And yes, those little gasps and moans, probably not so far removed from how she'd sound if Dottie were killing her instead of fucking her.

But those were not her orders, not yet at least. 

She pushed her fingers in as far as they would go and drank up the little whimper it caused. "Do you like that, Peg?" she whispered.

Peggy nodded helplessly, "Yes," she panted, "i like it deep like that."

And Dottie held still, watching Agent Carter thrusting against those fingers, fucking herself on them while Dottie murmured encouragement. "That's real good, Peggy," she assured her. "You sure look pretty like that."

It was almost disappointing when Agent Carter finished, clutching at Dottie's wrists, eyes closed, moaning quietly, "Bloody Christ, oh god, Yes...". Her voice held the gratitude of someone who'd been given something they desperately needed.

She waited until Peggy's shaking stopped, then pulled her hand away, licking the taste of Peggy off of her fingers. 

Peggy reached up to touch her, presumably to return the favor, but Dottie stopped her. "Oh, don't worry about me," she assured her.

"But..." Peggy began to protest.

Dottie shushed her. "It's ok, Peggy. You took care of my pipes. So I took care of yours." Her blue eyes flashed.

Just because she was on a mission, didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun.

 

****

The wide eyed girl from Iowa shut the lights, sipped some more vodka, and then cuffed her wrist to the bed that still smelled of Peggy Carter's perfume.

Her hand drifted down her stomach, slid into the waistband of her panties. She quietly stroked herself, and for a few moments there was no sound in the room but the slight rattle of the cuff against the headboard. 

She whispered in a convincing English accent, "Bloody Christ, oh god, Yes..."


	2. Barely A Scratch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy comes back for more

Peggy was still processing the fact that she’d consented to taking Dottie ice skating at Rockefeller Center.  

It had almost seemed like a dream the other night; being jarred from sleep at 1:30 in the morning, fixing the pipe under the blonde’s sink, getting drenched, ending up on her back in the squeaky bed, with the girl’s fingers buried inside her, stumbling back to her own room after Dottie cheerfully rebuffed her attempt to return the favor.

But she wanted it again.  She'd gone without for long enough.  So she did the proper thing, and invited Dottie out. 

Peggy had thought a nice dinner, maybe going to see the new Hitchcock film, perhaps dancing at one of those tucked-away "women-only" clubs in Greenwich Village.  But Dottie was fixated on ice skating at Rockefeller Center.  Her blue eyes had grown so wide and pleading when Peggy had suggested they spend time together doing “something more adult”, as she’d put it, that Peggy had found herself relenting despite herself.

And now here she was, lacing up her skates with glacial slowness while she watched Dottie gliding around the rink underneath the golden art-deco statues of Rockefeller Center.  She was fabulously graceful.  She was undoubtedly a gifted dancer, if her skating was any indication.  Peggy on the other hand had … never quite mastered the skill of ice skating.  She knew very well that her right cross had its own brutal sort of grace, but watching Dottie’s effortless movements, she also knew very well that it was not at all the same thing.

Having had enough of waiting for Peggy to finish lacing up, Dottie glided back over.  “C’mon Peggy,” she breathed in that flat, Midwestern accent, smiling that oddly innocent smile.  She offered one of her hands.  “It’s easy.”

Peggy stood, taking in the spectacle of Dottie with her red wool mittens (doubtless knitted by Ma Underwood) and earmuffs, her face childlike and lit up as she held her hand out to Peggy.  Peggy relented with a smirk, warning, “I hope you’re as strong as you seem, Dottie, I’m afraid you’re going to be doing a lot of holding me up.”

Dottie shrugged cheerfully, as perpetually, innocently agreeable as she ever was.

Of course Peggy had seen a side of her that was neither innocent nor agreeable; while it made Peggy uneasy, it was also the reason she was here, making some sort of valiant attempt to date this strange girl.

As she gingerly moved out onto the ice, her leather gloved hand wrapped around Dottie's mittened one, Peggy was peripherally aware of the other pairs and groups gliding past them.  Though they seemed mostly comfortable, there were a few wobbly ones like herself.   She tossed her scarf over her shoulder with an attempt at being cavalier, and said, “Lead on.”

  


*****

 

Dottie had been skating since she could walk, since before she could dance.  She'd been fitted for her first set of blades as a chubby-legged toddler in Bogorodsk. It was like breathing for her; more than second nature.  Even before the Red Room, there was this.

She could barely contain the thrill of seeing her target so vulnerable, so dependent on her for balance.  Her chest tugged inward on itself, delighting in knowing that here was something she excelled at that the great Agent Carter did not.

But she was careful to keep her smile sweet and her face mild as she floated easily around the rink, supporting her pretty target on one of her arms.  The speakers above the rink played jazzy Christmas music (inappropriately early, Dottie thought, it was only November).  

And then it began to snow.

It came in light, large flakes, drifting gently down from the night sky.  It wasn't like the snows Dottie was used to in Russia: the ones that slapped at your cheeks, drove you indoors and left you stuck there, sometimes for days.  This was gentle, delicate, peculiar.  She noticed some of the flakes sticking to Peggy's dark hair, dusting the shoulders of her black wool coat, lacy and, under the lights around the rink, faintly sparkling.  Dottie noticed her target's dark eyes looking up from the ice to glance at her face, and she knew the snow must be doing the same to her own hair.  The Agent had the same enchanted look that Dottie had seen on the faces of countless men before she'd snapped their necks and stolen their secrets.

Too easy, she thought with disdain and disappointment.  If the order ever did come in to kill the target, she'd never even need to take her in combat.  She'd been looking forward to that.  Agent Carter might not be graceful on the ice, but Dottie was willing to bet she cut a fine figure throwing punches in a hand to hand fight.

At the thought of that, a warmth yanked at her insides, pulled lower, till she almost felt the way she did when she drank.  It felt too much like wanting.  It stirred a miniature tempest of rage in her.  She tamped it down, and gave her date another sweet smile.  "Ready to try on your own, Peggy?" she asked, knowing she wasn't.

The pretty Agent smiled sheepishly and began to reply, "I think not-" but Dottie slipped out of her grasp, placed hands on her lower back, and gave her a little push.

For a brief moment, holding an awkward crouch, Peggy Carter sailed forward on the ice in a way that seemed as though she might succeed in making a circuit around the rink without Dottie's assistance... But then she sailed smack into a couple skating ahead of her, shouting as she came through, trying to warn them that she'd be unable to stop and didn't know how to steer.  Dottie allowed herself a tiny, satisfied smile as she watched her hit the ice in a tangle of legs and skates and overcoats.  

She skated over to where the lot of them sat stunned and shivering on the ice.  "Gosh, guys, I'm real sorry!"  She knelt down next to them, peering at them with great worry. "Are you alright?" She noted that pretty Agent Carter had split one of her pretty lips and there was a small streak of blood on it.  Her stomach squeezed in on itself.  

The man in the group nodded.  "We're okay, just a little shook up is all."

"Oh gosh, this is all my fault! I am just the silliest goose!" She gave him her best earnest look. "I thought my friend was ready to skate on her own, she was doing so well... I'm real sorry, mister!"

He and his date, already picking themselves up from the ice, waved her off. "No harm done," the woman assured her, skating away.

She helped Peggy to her feet. "Oh, Peggy, gosh, I'm so sorry.... and you're bleeding!"

Peggy Carter absently licked the streak of blood from her lower lip.  Dottie wondered what it tasted like.  "Barely a scratch," she promised, keeping the mood light.

"Peg," Dottie insisted, wearing a mask of concern, "we ought to get some ice on that lip."

"Good idea," Peggy Carter agreed. "And some scotch." The lovely brunette gave her a warm look. "And I've got both in my room."

  


**********

  


Peggy had already made up her mind that Dottie was not going to get the drop on her this time.  They stood in the middle of Peggy's room, shoes kicked off, knocking back twin glasses of scotch on ice.  She could already see the flint in Dottie's stare, their eyes locked over the rims of the matching rock glasses.  Peggy was ready for her this time.  In fact, she was ahead of her.

Peggy finished her scotch first and set her glass down on a bedside table.  She moved in toward Dottie, plucked the drained glass from her hand, set it aside, and grabbed Dottie’s face, pulling her down into a hot kiss.  The response was immediate; she felt Dottie’s hands on her waist, drawing their bodies together.  Good.

Peggy didn’t have to push far to find a wall in this small place to push Dottie back up against.  The room was silent except the soft, wet sounds of their kisses and the quiet thud and release of breath as Peggy pressed herself against Dottie and held her there.  “I believe I’ve got some unfinished business with you, Miss Underwood,”  Peggy said sternly in between kisses.  Her hands slid up Dottie’s pleated skirt, over the tops of her stockings, to the warm skin of her thigh.

“Peggy, wait,”  Dottie protested, and there was something strangely vulnerable in her voice that made Peggy pause.  She pulled back and looked at Dottie, and found her looking back with the same piercing stare that she’d seen before.  Whatever that vulnerability was, it seemed to have instantly evaporated.

“I’m a nice girl,” Dottie said emphatically, and she put her hands on Peggy’s chest and shoved her backward.  Peggy was surprised at her strength but managed to land in a wooden kitchen chair without toppling back.  Had she misread? she wondered for half a moment.

But then Dottie was striding toward her, hitching up her skirt, and settling herself in Peggy’s lap, straddling her, face to face.  Peggy was hit with the clean, soft scent of her Pears soap, the curve of her neck at just the right level to sink her teeth into.  “Oh yes,” she murmured, “you’re a very nice girl, aren’t you,” nipping at her neck.  She tugged Dottie’s blouse out of her skirt and slid her hands up her strong, smooth back.

“I said, I’m a nice girl,” Dottie said again, pulling Peggy’s hands off of her back and swinging her wrists around behind her, continuing to grind her hips against Peggy, the friction making delicious heat.  Peggy felt Dottie pin her wrists behind her quite forcefully.  

She liked this game.  If Dottie's intensely focused stare was any indication, she did too.

Peggy glanced back at her restrained wrists.  “You look quite naughty to me,” she panted, biting sharply at what she could reach of Dottie’s neck and chest and enjoying the sounds of little breaths getting caught in the back of Dottie's throat.  

Dottie felt strong; Peggy was sure she could overpower her but it could require more of her abilities than it would be wise to show.  But she wasn’t about to simply be pinned down and fucked again, either.

She put one leg out to the side and upset the chair, spilling them onto the carpet and allowing her to roll on top of Dottie, pressing her down with her weight, holding her wrists to the floor, and kissing her hard.  Dottie bit down on the split lip, and Peggy gasped at the little twinge of pain and pulled back.  Dottie’s eyes tore into her, and her tongue snaked out to lick the tiny bead of blood off.  Peggy dove back in for more.

She didn’t want to let go of Dottie’s wrists, because she was sure to try and flip their positions again, and she seemed likely to be strong and agile enough to do it.  Dottie's frame struggled underneath her, but it wasn't the struggle of someone who didn't want sex. It was the struggle of someone who wanted it her way.  

She managed to maneuver her thigh in between Dottie's legs; she felt hot there, even though the fabric of both their skirts.  She continued to hold Dottie down, and somewhere in the struggling, a rhythm began to emerge.

  


*****

  


Dottie knew of at least three ways to get Agent Carter off of her from this position.  But employing them might mean revealing herself and that would not do.  Not now, anyway. 

She felt Agent Carter holding back too, and part of her wished she wouldn't.  She wanted the full force of her blows, the total strength she knew was coiled in those pretty shoulders.  She wanted to slam her against a wall, and feel her fighting, really fighting, for her life.  

It was too heady a thought.  Lying on the hard floor, underneath the Agent's weight, she realized that her efforts to use her hips to shift Peggy Carter's weight off of her had somehow become her thrusting against the thigh that was pressed against her sex, and that it was getting hotter, and that it felt very, very good.

Too good.  So good it was making her angry.  She felt herself losing control of the mission, of herself.  She strained against Peggy's grip again. "Peggy, let me go!" she hissed.

To her surprise, Agent Carter released one of her wrists.  Dottie wound her hand into Peggy's hair and yanked her head back. Peggy's hand moved down to push their skirts up and out of the way, to feel more of each other's skin.  The first moment of it sent a hot shudder through her.  She felt herself getting wetter.  Yes, she was losing control.

Their grinding became harder and faster and Dottie rasped, "I hate you." She slapped the woman on top of her hard across the face.  She smiled at the loud, red mark it left on her pretty white skin.

Peggy Carter paused for a moment, then hit back, and it stung, hot and biting. Dottie groaned.  Her free hand dug into the firm curve of Peggy's ass.  "Harder," she demanded, raking her nails up Peggy's back.

She felt beads of sweat breaking along her lip; she could see it on Peggy Carter's face too.  This was wanting, and she tried as long as she could to smother it in pain and punishment, asking to be struck again and again as they moved against each other.  But it was no good.  The pain felt good too.  She loved it.  She needed it.  She hated Peggy Carter for making her feel it.  

And then she finished, her hand wound in Peggy's dark hair, trembling and pinned in between Agent Carter and the floor, overwhelmed by this strange, burning, delicious, sick feeling.  She was failing her mission.  And Peggy Carter was the cause of it.

She needed to get control of the situation.

"You're quite something," she heard Agent Carter purring as she pushed her off.  

Dottie angrily shoved her to the floor, yanked her white silk panties off, pushed her legs open, and dove in to taste her.  She'd been taught that men enjoyed being pleased that way; she'd seen it work like a charm.  It stood to reason it would be just as effective on a woman.

"I'm going to make you mine, Peggy," she told her, burying her anger again and replacing it with something reassuring, something colder.  She would control Agent Carter, just like she would any man.

"Dottie..." Peggy Carter began in what was sure to be some sort of protest, but it dissolved into a surprisingly high pitched birdsong of a moan at the moment Dottie's mouth made contact.  She dragged her tongue up and down the length of Agent Carter's warm, wet sex several times, noting which spots seemed most sensitive.  She found the taste ... not entirely unpleasant.  She found the response it got... exhilarating.  Peggy Carter was coming completely undone, falling apart under her mouth.  She would be able to make her do anything she wanted now.  The sight of pretty Peggy on her back, her dress pushed up and her stockings still on, with her legs thrown open for whatever Dottie wanted... It made her feel strong again.  

She felt her lovely target drawing closer to a climax, and she paused for a moment.  "Are you mine, Peggy?" she asked coolly.

"Yes..."

"Say it," she demanded.

"I'm yours, I'm yours.... Now for the love of God, Dottie..."

It was all she needed to hear.  She leaned in, and with calm, exacting strokes, finished her off. It was even more spectacular than the first time. She shook, pulled at Dottie's hair, muttered oaths and curses and Dottie's name in that delightful English accent.  (Part of Dottie wished Peggy would pull her hair a little harder, but no matter.)

Peggy was the first to sit up.  She motioned to the bed, but Dottie shook her head.  "Gosh, thanks, Peggy," she sighed, "I'd love to stay but it's awfully late."

"It's only eight o'clock."

She picked herself up, leaned in to kiss Peggy gently, and then stood up, smoothing her skirt.  She smiled that sweet, innocent smile she'd perfected long ago.  "I had a real nice time tonight, Peggy.  Thanks a lot."

She left the baffled Agent sitting on the floor, trying to work out what had just happened.  

It had been a good date, she decided.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Rites of Spring

Peggy sat at breakfast, entirely disengaged from the chattering of the other girls around her, stirring her coffee listlessly and watching the tiny whirlpool in the middle of the cup. The more Peggy thought about whatever it was she was doing with Dottie Underwood, the more she was settling in on two inescapable conclusions: one, Dottie had problems, and big ones... and two, they were now Peggy's problems. 

It had become clear that there seemed to be two Dotties... The wide-eyed, naive farm girl, and the slightly unhinged young lady who seemed to enjoy moderately rough sex and power plays.  Peggy had no problem with either of these things (though innocent rural types had never been to her taste, sexually speaking)... The problem was that they existed in the same person.   

After the first incident, Peggy chalked the weirdness of it all up to "repressed country girl".... Probably raised in a church community, had to make all sorts of of rules for herself to feel alright about being with women.  That, she'd decided, was why Dottie didn't let her reciprocate after “taking care of her pipes.”

But this last time was something else again.  When Dottie had struck her, she'd instinctively responded in kind... but the begging for it again and again, her voice sounding choked in her throat.... Peggy was of the disposition to do whatever seemed to work for her bed partners, but that had definitely been disquieting. And Dottie had really looked like she wanted to murder her, even when she was coming.  Actually, especially when she was coming, now that Peggy thought about it.  When Dottie had taken her with her mouth, it felt aggressive, like she was staking a claim.  It felt hot, it felt incredible, but it also didn't feel like a game.

There was something more going on, she decided.  Not just garden variety religious repression.  Trauma.  Something really bloody awful, most likely.  Whether the innocent routine was a facade to cover that up, or block it out, well... It was anyone's guess.  All she knew for certain was that sex with Dottie this last time felt as though she'd kicked over a rock and seen a lot of dark, squirmy stuff teeming underneath it that she'd just as soon not have.

There was no way around it.  She had to slow things down, or stop them.  Dottie was possibly more fragile than she seemed, in an entirely different way than Peggy had initially assumed. In good conscience, she couldn't push forward with someone clearly this broken, not unless she wanted to bear Dottie's burdens too.  She might do that for someone she loved, but this wasn't that.  At least, not yet.  

“Hey, English?  Hello?” 

Peggy glanced up at Angie, who was aggressively buttering her toast.  “Sorry, Angie, what?”

“I said what about you and Mr. Fancy?”

Peggy shrugged dismissively.  “What about him?  He’s just a colleague.”

Angie nodded skeptically and bit into the toast.  “Say, you okay, Peg?" She asked around a mouthful of food. "I thought I heard you take a spill or something last night.”

Peggy offered up a lame smile.  “A little too much scotch, a rather confrontational kitchen chair, you know the story.”  She rubbed the tender spot on her elbow where it had struck the floor when they spilled out of that chair.  It wasn’t the only sore spot she was sporting this morning, either.  Rug burn on one knee and some sort of stiffness nonsense going on in her lower back.

Angie continued looking skeptical.  She looked around.  “Hey, you seen Iowa?  She’s usually down here before anyone.”

Peggy shook her head.  “No, I haven’t.  We went out for a bit last night, but I haven’t seen her this morning.”  Which was true.  Peggy worried that she’d inadvertently pushed something that she shouldn’t have last night.  She hoped not.  

  
  


******

  
  


Dottie was in a good mood.  She’d skipped breakfast that morning and gone straight to work: poised in the window of an office building in midtown, she observed a target in a building across the street and two floors down.  She observed him moving about his workspace for a few hours, noted with disdain that he failed to wash his hands when emerging from the restroom.  Men, she thought with disgust. 

And then she’d sniped him; clean, with one shot, directly between the eyes.  She watched him go down.  She was good at this.  Damned good.  The best.  

Maybe Agent Carter was as good, but she might never find out.  

Last night, the dreams tried to break through the blackness of Dottie’s sleep.  She woke with flashes of memories she couldn’t quite touch, couldn’t quite name;  a pretty girl with pale skin and dark eyes (Anya?, her mind strained for a name) who looked not unlike a young Agent Carter;  her skin crawling at the feeling of hands, man’s hands, methodically stroking her body;  electric shocks stabbing through her pulse points… She never could tell if she wanted the dreams or not.  She couldn’t remember much about the Red Room and even less about what came before it.  She suspected it was better that way.

But she wasn’t going to let last night’s dreams spoil her good mood.  She’d made a clean kill this morning, and last night she’d reduced the great Agent Carter to a trembling, moaning mess on the floor.  She may have suffered a moment of weakness, but according to her calculus, it had been a necessary sacrifice.  And now Agent Carter was hers.

Still, it nagged at someplace deep in her stomach… The way she’d felt with Agent Carter’s weight on top of her, the way her nerves had reached out screaming for it, how trapped she’d felt by the warm stickiness of wanting; those Red Room “therapies” that she couldn’t quite remember, they were supposed to make her immune, but they’d failed this time, in a way that they hadn’t before.  She need to exorcise this feeling.  She made her way to the dance studio in Gramercy Park that had been provided for her.  

It was empty when she arrived, as usual.  She bound her straw-gold curls up into a tight bun, changed into her leotard, and dropped the needle onto a record.  A faint smile curled her lips as the eerie opening notes of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” moaned from the record player.  Only the best, the strongest, the most enduring dancers could hope to attempt to follow in Nijinsky’s footsteps and keep pace with the demands of his choreography.  She’d seen lesser dancers exit the stage vomiting after performances.  But not me, she thought with pride.

She was the best.

The cacophony of the orchestra guided her; at first she watched her own movements in the large mirrors, admiring her own strength and grace as she duplicated the steps that she knew so well.  Her breathing remained even, no matter that its pace had picked up.  She began to sweat, and with the sweat came release; that sick feeling pushed out of her stomach, out through her pores.  She would trample it on the hardwood, abandon it among the scuff marks left by her toe shoes.  Her body was a powerful, graceful, deadly machine.

The best.  

She remembered reading once that in the most climactic moments of Stravinsky’s work of chaotic genius, the audience at its Paris debut began to riot.  She smiled.  She’d be causing riots soon enough, she thought, and it wouldn’t be with her ballet.  She was no longer watching herself; she was lost in the catharsis of movement, of the cold pleasure of dissonance and discord that she sowed in the world around her.  She was the best.

And then, the door opened.

  


****

  


Peggy fabricated a convincing story to get Miriam to give her the address for the dance studio where Dottie practiced during the day.  She really felt she ought not let things lie out there any longer than necessary. So, during the lunch hour at work, Peggy made her way over.

She ascended the stairs slowly, hearing the strains of what had to be Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” echoing down the stairs, the discordant music slapping against the plaster walls as it descended.  As she reached the third floor, she paused, peering for a moment through the cracked-open door to watch Dottie at her craft.   

She was startling; there was the grace she’d seen on the ice last night, but there was also the fierceness and strength she’d seen afterwards.  She was the birth of spring; impeccably timed, a force of nature, intense, beautiful and violent.  Peggy paused for several long moments, looking at the full spectacle of Dottie's form in her dance clothes, twisting and leaping, watching the labor of her muscles, the soft gleam of sweat on her skin, the long, swanlike curve of her neck, now visible with her hair pulled up. Here were both Dotties, existing simultaneously.  

Gently, she pushed the door open to get a better view.

Dottie’s step faltered as she turned to see Peggy standing there.  Her look was curious; sweet and smiling, surprised, but also guarded, defensive.  Peggy suddenly felt as though she’d interrupted something private.  “I’m sorry, Dottie … I … I haven’t been here long,” she promised. 

Dottie brushed a hand across her brow and lifted the needle from the record.  “What are you doing here, Peggy?” 

“Sorry, I got the address from Miriam.  I… wanted to see you.”  Truth was, she’d come up with here with honorable intentions but seeing Dottie’s strong body, sweating and chest rising and falling with deep breaths, presented more of a challenge than she’d expected.

Dottie’s mouth twitched and her look scanned Peggy’s face as she moved closer.  “Really?”  She reached out and tugged the hem of Peggy’s sleeve, lightly.  “Couldn’t wait until later, Peggy?”

Peggy bit her lip, reminding herself that she came here to slow things down.  “Dottie…” she began.

Dottie backed her against the mirrored wall, leaned down, tilted her face back, and pressed in for a kiss.  She pulled back, looking at Peggy with that look, that look that said she was something to be devoured.  Peggy’s body responded in spite of herself, and she found herself pulling Dottie’s mouth back down to hers.  One of Dottie’s long legs folded up on the barre behind her, and Peggy knew that she had to stop this before it went too far.

“Dottie,” she whispered, “couldn’t someone walk in on us here?”

“Not at this time of day,” Dottie whispered back.

Peggy surrendered for another moment to one of Dottie’s firm, commanding kisses.  But then she placed her hands on Dottie’s shoulders and gently but firmly pushed her back.  “Dottie… we… we’ve got to slow down,” she said, feeling not at all firm about it but trying to sound as though she did.

Dottie pulled away, looking wounded and surprised.  “I … I don’t understand, Peggy.  Don’t you like me?”

Peggy smiled gently.  “Of course I do, Dottie.  That’s precisely why I think we ought to slow down.  Get to know each other a bit better.”

Dottie's face was unreadable.  It was a smile, but it seemed frozen.  "Oh... I see, Peggy."

Peggy reached into the pocket of her red blazer and produced two tickets.  "I bought us these.... Look."

Dottie plucked them from her fingers.  Peggy watched her eyes grow wide as she read them.  "The circus?" she breathed in disbelief. "Really?"

"Ringling Brothers," Peggy confirmed, smiling warmly.  "Clowns, tigers, acrobats.  The proper circus."

Dottie looked ready to swoon. "Oh, gosh, Peggy!"

"And I..." Peggy added saucily, taking Dottie's hand and kissing it, "am going to be a perfect gentleman.  For a while, at least."

Dottie suddenly seemed shy.  "Ok, Peg."

Peggy sighed.  What a puzzle this girl was.  Good God, Peggy hoped it would be worth it.

  
  


******

  
  


She was better than this.

Wasn't she?

Lust, weakness, sentimentality; they'd been scorched out of her soul long ago.  If Agent Carter favored maudlin, dewy-eyed romance over sex, so be it.  Dottie still had her where she wanted her.  She should be lying in bed feeling confident in her mission's success right now.

So why was her body disappointed that Peggy hadn't allowed her to give her those rough pleasures back at the studio? Why was she wondering what their encounter would have looked like from the various angles provided by a room full of mirrors?

Purely academic.  She was better than this.  She was the best.

She tightened the cuff around her wrist until the circulation was almost cut off, and went into a dark, restless sleep.  The dreams came again, still muffled and obscure, but poking more insistently this time.  The snap of another girl's neck in her hands, the sound of bones crunching, that pretty pale girl who looked like Agent Carter.  Of course she could do it again.  She was the best.  Of course she could.

But not until she'd been to the circus.


	4. Tiger, Be Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dottie and Peggy go to the circus

Peggy cradled a bag of popcorn and a large waxed paper cup of soda pop against her chest with one hand, holding onto Dottie's arm with the other.  The giant tent was dimly lit and smelled of peanuts, gunpowder, sweat and animals.   _And I thought the men's locker room had a pungent musk_ , she thought dryly.  They wound their way through the crowd to their seats.  Peggy had bought the best ones she could afford, about ten rows back from the center ring, but from the look of absolute wonderment on Dottie's face, Peggy imagined she'd have been thrilled to watch from the standing room section in the back.

Dottie's face was rapt from the moment the lights came up in the center of the tent.  She'd occasionally glance over at Peggy, seeming to need reassurance that they were both enjoying themselves.  Peggy gave her several warm smiles as they watched one act after the next; the clown car filled her with awkward giggling, the elephants commanded the requisite degree of awe, and the acrobats actually put a look on Dottie's face that Peggy had never seen before; she looked thoughtful, seemed to be analyzing them, breaking apart their movements with her eyes and considering the physics of their routines.  

"Do you like them?" Peggy inquired, leaning in toward her to be heard over the band.

Dottie nodded.  "They're real good," she answered with a small smile, observing them with great focus.  "The little one's doing all the work, though.  You can tell he's the strongest even though they're trying not to make it look that way."

Peggy raised an eyebrow.  "How can you tell?"

They watched as the larger man in the sparkly blue leotard tossed the smaller one into the air. The crowd in the tent ooohed at how high he went.  "Watch when they do it again," Dottie answered.  "Look at the extension on his leg.  The big fella is helping him, you know?. He's adding.  But the little fella? He's already on his way up.  He's really extending all the way into the jump."

"So most of the height on his jump is coming from him, not the big guy," Peggy finished.

Dottie smiled at her.  "Exactly, Peggy. You're real smart.”

 

*********

 

Dottie carefully pulled a few kernels of popcorn out of the paper bag in Peggy’s lap, focusing on the show before her rather than the woman next to her.  She delicately popped the kernels into her mouth, being careful to avoid them getting stuck on her bright red lipstick.  

It wasn't surprising that Agent Carter would easily grasp the dynamics of the acrobatic routines.  She didn't have the build of a gymnast but she was quite physical, and clearly intelligent, despite seeming to be fooled by this corn-fed Iowa act.  It was almost a shame, came the unbidden thought, that Agent Carter played for the wrong team.  Dottie had very little trouble picturing her in black tactical gear, charging into a firefight.  The image was far more stirring than it should have been.

A little girl in front of them turned around and looked at Dottie.  "How do you know?" she asked.

Dottie gave the little girl a vacant smile.  "What's that, sweetheart?"

The little girl looked back and forth between Peggy and Dottie.  She was possibly eight years old, with curious eyes and blonde curls like Dottie's.  "How do you know that stuff about the way they're jumping?"

The girl's mother scolded, "Molly, don't eavesdrop, it's very rude." She offered an apologetic look at the two women.

But Peggy smiled at her, and winked at the little girl.  "Oh it's alright, she's just curious. My friend is a ballerina," Peggy told Molly.

Molly's eyes lit up.  "Just like me!" She grinned at Dottie and back at Peggy. "Are you a ballerina too?"

"No," Peggy sighed, seeming disappointed. "I work for the phone company."

Molly turned her attention back to Dottie. "I just started my classes.  Do you know all your positions?"

"Why yes," Dottie answered sweetly, "i once danced Swan Lake."

The little girl was impressed.  "At Lincoln center?"

Dottie shook her head, feigning embarrassment. "No, just at the arts center in Des Moines."

"Alright Molly, that's enough," the mother admonished.  "Turn around and watch the show."

Dottie reflected that the little girl was starting late if she was going to be serious about dance.  She wondered whether, if she were capable of bearing children, she would have one that looked like Molly.

She reflected that this was all hypothetical, since Molly was probably not going to survive if her mission was successful.  And of course, she would never bear any sort of children; even if she wanted to, the Red Room had seen to it at "graduation" that she wouldn't.

Sometimes Dottie felt a tugging in her gut when she experienced something that she suspected she’d experienced before.  She felt that tugging when she watched the acrobats, but not the clowns, not the jugglers, not the fire eaters, the seals.  

But then the tigers were brought out.  Her stomach swam as she watched them, pacing in their cages, their golden eyes feral and the muscles shifting and coiling beneath their orange and black fur.  She fell very still, feeling for a moment that she had stared into their faces beforee.  More than that, that she had been one of them, that she still was one of them.  She was struck by one of those moments that was something less than a memory, just a jumble of sensations echoing out of the past -- of crouching in the snow in the woods in Siberia, looking into (or through?) the eyes of a tiger just like the ones entering the ring.

She felt Agent Carter’s hand settle over hers and realized that in that moment, she’d reached beside her and grabbed Agent Carter’s knee, and was squeezing it hard.

“Are you alright, Dottie?” Peggy asked, looking concerned.  

“Oh, sure, Peggy,” Dottie answered brightly.  “I’m just a little scared of tigers, aren’t you?”

 

********

 

Peggy clasped Dottie’s hand tighter.  “I’m sure they won’t bother us back here,” she assured her.  She passed Dottie the large cup of soda pop and watched her red lips close around the straw.  Dottie’s eyes were fixed on that center ring.  It didn’t look like fear, exactly, but it was intense, and Peggy felt their fingers wind together as they watched the trainer open the cage and beckon the tiger out.

From the moment the tiger stepped from its cage, the crowd seemed to be holding its breath.  The trainer was a large, beefy fellow in a spangled jacket, wielding a chair and a whip and playing to the crowd, making the most of every little movement.  The tiger stepped forth, graceful and powerful.  As he exited the cage, he looked at the trainer for a moment and balked, starting to step backwards into the cage.  The trainer cracked the whip once against the ground.

“He’s not happy,”  Peggy heard Dottie murmur next to her, her voice sounding as though she was very far away.

“The trainer?”

“The tiger."

Indeed, Dottie's assessment seemed accurate.  The tiger did not seem inspired to participate in the trainer's plans.  After a few moments of various forms of coaxing and cajoling, the tiger emerged, and butted his forehead against the ruddy-cheeked trainer's stomach, knocking him backwards.

After a brief stare down, the tiger then took his place on the platform meant for him in the center of the ring.  

"Perhaps it's part of the show?" Peggy suggested hopefully.

Dottie didn't answer.  She took another sip from the soda pop and then passed it back to Peggy.  "I sure hope so," she responded finally.

They sat in the dark of the tent, their fingers knotted together, frozen, watching the show, as the band blared away.  Peggy had an ill feeling of foreboding.  Each time the trainer demanded a trick from the great beast, it balked, resisted, sometimes pushed back, before performing what was being demanded of it.  Each time the trainer cracked his whip, she noticed a kind of physical reaction in her date -- a blink, a subtle tensing in her hand, her face.

The dark was getting oppressive, and Peggy was getting anxious.

The trainer lit a hoop on fire, ostensibly for the tiger to jump through.  The tiger stared into the flames, but would not jump.

The trainer cracked his whip against the floor.

The tiger roared at him.  It was like thunder.  It was like a subway train.  This was a mighty beast and the trainer was a pushy, insistent piece of meat that the tiger was getting tired of tolerating.

The crowd was on its feet now, waiting to see what would happen.

The trainer cracked the whip again.  The tiger's massive paw swiped across the trainer's portly stomach, tearing his sparkly jacket as well add the flesh underneath it.  Bright red blood blossomed on his chest as he stumbled back.

The tiger roared again, and a few people began moving away from the ring, suddenly disliking their odds.  

The trainer, clearly injured, reached into the back of his waistband and produced a large revolver, a .38 special, preparing to subdue the tiger with it.  He was too slow.  The tiger's massive jaws closed around his arm and shook him like a rag doll, and the gun clattered away .  The crowd, after a frozen moment of horror, began to stampede, shrieking, toward the exits.

Peggy took hold of Dottie's arm, shouting above the sudden din, "Dottie, we've got to get out of here!"

Dottie glanced back at the ring, where the tiger was tearing the trainer to bloody pieces.  She glanced out at the aisle, where Molly and her mother had foolishly attempted to run, not realizing they'd be stampeded.  Dottie's face said plainly enough that she didn't want to just run out with the herd.

Peggy's heart started pounding.  "Are you alright, Dottie?"

 

*****

 

Dottie's mind raced.  The calculus had to be done quickly.

Sentimental Agent Carter was going to want to save Molly and her mother.  Dottie's concern lay with the gruesome tableau in the center ring.  "I'm fine, Peggy, but the little girl..."

Before she could say anything, Peggy had picked up a folding chair and, using it like a riot shield, waded out into the stream of people rushing toward the exits, helping Molly and her mother up off of the floor and dragging them out of harm's way.  Molly was thrown over Agent Carter’s shoulder shoulder and the mother clung to her arm as she used the metal chair to clear their path to a less dangerous spot.  

Agent Carter had that matter in hand, it appeared.

Dottie slipped lightly over the tops of the folding chairs toward the center ring.  It was only ten rows after all, and she was light on her feet.  She reached the edge of the ring, slipped one of her dress gloves on, and picked up the gun where it lay on the ground.  Even in this moment, with the hysteria going on around her, the man in front of her being torn apart, she was cool.  Calm.  She knew what needed to be done.

She knew that this tiger was going to die.  There was no saving the beast after he’d mauled his trainer.  She knew how the world worked.  “Stoy spokoyno, tigr!”  she called softly to it, barely audible beneath the screams of the trainer.   _Be still, tiger._  

Where the trainer had failed, the handlers would be coming into that tent soon enough, to finish what he’d been about to do.  Strangely, the tiger released the trainer from his jaws and turned his head slowly to look at Dottie.

Even if the trainer’s life could be saved (hardly likely given how injured he was), someone was going to come along and put a bolt between this tiger’s eyes.  Dottie knew.  She had read about it; the circuses and how they took these tigers, drugged them, beat them, made them submit. _But look at this one,_ she thought, w _ith everything that they’ve probably done to you, you’re still a tiger._  Still majestic, still dangerous.  Slowly, she cocked the gun, staring into the animal’s golden eyes, which were focused on her now.

She was not mawkish enough to think it understood her; it would just as easily devour her as the trainer.  But it was nevertheless unacceptable to her that these oafs, these idiots, be allowed to take its life.  She was the only one in the room who had that right.  She felt cold, cold as the snows of the Siberian woods, as she leveled the weapon at its face, and squeezed four rounds into its head.  She stood, frozen, watching it expire in front of her.  It gave a last bone-rattling roar before collapsing.  She dropped the gun, tugged her glove off, and turned around.  

The crowd was still pitching and full of nervous electricity, but had stopped their exodus.

Agent Carter had barricaded herself, Molly and her mother between one of the tent poles and an improvised wall of several folding chairs, one of which she was wielding with an impressively wide swing to “encourage” hastily exiting patrons to steer clear of her.  Resourceful, Dottie thought.  She felt Agent Carter staring at her with surprise as she cleared row after row of chairs to reach where they stood.

"Dottie, how ...?"

"Peggy, we better go," Dottie answered quietly, cutting her off.  She looked around furtively.

Peggy paused a fraction of a second, then nodded.  Then she handed a Dottie a folding chair and gestured toward the bleachers. "I say we get under them and go out that way."

Dottie nodded in agreement.  She looked down at Molly. "I'll take the little girl."  Molly looked up at her, and without a word, climbed up Dottie's arms and clung around her neck like a little monkey.  

Using the chairs to clear their path, they made their way through the still-roiling crowd, some of whom had seemed to realize that Dottie had in fact been the one who had shot the tiger. She needed to get away from those eyes, sooner than later.  It was dark and dusty under the bleachers, smelling of peanut shells, spilled drinks and, more vaguely, horse manure.  Peggy heaved the thick, heavy fabric of the big top up, enough to allow the four of them to duck under and break forth into the cool evening.

The night was clear.  Dottie could feel the breezes off the Hudson River.  Molly's hair smelled clean and the little girl's weight was light in her arms.

Peggy was going to want to talk about this later.


	5. More Alike Than Not

Peggy sprang for a taxi home.  She simply wanted to get the hell out of there and couldn't fathom walking  to a subway and then a crosstown bus all the way over to the Griffith.  She and Dottie sat in the back seat in silence, Peggy's hand resting cautiously over Dottie's.

After a long silence, Peggy finally spoke. "I thought you were afraid of tigers."

Dottie's look was hard to read.  After another long, pregnant silence, she spoke quietly.  "It would have been real bad if I didn't do what I did, Peggy."

Peggy nodded.  There was no guessing how many other people the tiger might have injured had Dottie not done what she did. 

Something else bothered Peggy now.  "How do you know how to shoot?"

Dottie sighed. "I grew up on a farm, Peggy.  You know how many times I had to shoot an animal?"

"Shot many tigers on the farm?" Peggy replied skeptically.

Dottie looked at her, hurt.  "Of course not, Peggy.  But wolves, rabid dogs, sure.  There was even a bear loose on the property one time." Her eyes, with their long, golden lashes, cast down at their entangled hands on the seat.  "You do what you have to do, Peggy.  You can understand that, can't you?"

Peggy felt guilty for being so suspicious.  Dottie simply continued to surprise her and subvert  her expectations.  Peggy understood better than anyone the need to do the difficult, frightening or unpleasant thing.  Her face softened.  "I'm sorry Dottie, I wasn't implying anything... It just... surprised me."

Dottie smiled shyly.  "You weren't so bad yourself, you know.  That little girl and her ma are safe because of you."

"Let's call it a team effort," Peggy replied, squeezing Dottie's hand.  Dottie seemed to enjoy that idea.

They spent the rest of the ride home leaning on each other, not talking, holding hands in the dark of the back seat.  Peggy wondered if she and Dottie on some level were more alike than not.  She was still disturbed by the side of her that she'd seen during sex, but she also just witnessed the girl charge a tiger and shoot it at point blank range.  It was hard not to have some appreciation for that.

When they reached their floor, they paused outside Dottie's door.  "Wanna come in, Peggy?" she asked hopefully.

Peggy gave her a tired smile.  "I'm meant to be acting like a perfect gentleman, remember?"

Dottie leaned in and hugged her.  "I know,  Peggy," she said in that sweet, innocent voice.  Then she added in a whisper, "But I'd really like a taste of you tonight."

Peggy bit her lip, pulled back and looked at her.  "You're not making it easy for me to go back to my room, you know."

"Then don't.  Just come inside." Dottie opened the door and stepped inside.  She had that look of hunger, of unsettling focus.  At this particular moment, it made Peggy of think of nothing so much as the tiger.

Peggy wasn't sure she had it in her to bed down with a tiger tonight.

  
  


******

 

Dottie was drinking up the smoldering look in Agent Carter's dark eyes.  She could see, Peggy Carter wanted to come inside.  She wanted Dottie to do the things to her that she'd done before.  "Just come in, Peggy," she repeated, softer this time.

Agent Carter pulled her down for a kiss, and Dottie found her mouth soft, already opening for her, her tongue quick and eager, her full, sweet lips ready to be licked and bitten.  Dottie slipped one hand inside her date's black wool coat, palmed one of her large, heavy breasts through the tailored silk blouse, and listened with satisfaction to the muffled moan it caused.

But then Peggy Carter surprised her again.  "Dottie..." She pulled reluctantly away from the kiss, and looked at her earnestly.  "I can honestly say that I have never, ever been on a date like this.  But.... I really ought to sleep in my own bed tonight."

Dottie was puzzled.  She'd shot a tiger in front of her, what in the world did it take to impress this woman? Seducing women really was different from seducing men, she thought with mild annoyance.  It was much harder.  

"And you still can," she whispered. "You don't have to stay.”

“But I want to, you see,” Peggy Carter was whispering back, stroking Dottie’s shoulder with a touch full of lust and ambivalence.  “I don’t like not staying.  I don’t like doing things that way.  If you’re worth going to bed with, you ought to be worth staying the night with.”

“Am I?”  Dottie asked, genuinely curious.  Genuinely wanting the answer to be yes.   Why?  she wondered.  

“I’ve been trying to work that out.”  

Dottie pulled Peggy inside the door.  “You’re not going to figure it out out there, Peggy.”  She shut the door and pushed her back against it.  The heat in her stomach rose as she pressed Peggy against the hard wood, felt her breath speed up, felt her hot kisses.  Dottie was still unsettled from the events of their evening, but she knew that this was, strictly speaking, unnecessary.  She could tell she had Agent Carter on the hook; she didn’t need to take her to bed tonight.  But she wanted to.  Or at least, her body did.

  
  
  


*****

  
  


“Dottie …” Peggy moaned between kisses that grew harder and deeper with each passing moment.  She struggled to catch her breath.  “Dottie…”

“Peggy, don’t you want this?”  Dottie whispered again.  

"I do, but ..."  How to say it?  How could she explain that she didn't want to unwittingly break something in Dottie that wasn't hers to break?  "Is it what  you want?"

Dottie's eyes stared into her, and they had that same unnerving focus, but they were also, strangely, unwaveringly earnest.  "I want  you right now.  Can’t we figure out later whether you stay or don’t stay?"  Her hands were unbuttoning Peggy's coat and tossing it to the floor while she talked. 

Peggy's knees felt weak as Dottie's hands were pulling at her buttons, tugging the blouse off and dropping it onto the floor.  "I don't want to hurt you..." she tried to say, but then Dottie's mouth was biting down the side of her neck, her teeth sinking into the tendon with sharp little stabs.  “I want this, Dottie, but I can’t hurt you again,” she managed.

"That’s what you want, Peggy?"  Dottie asked, relieving Peggy of her skirt as she did.

Peggy moaned softly,  "Mmm, yes.  Is there a way?”

"So you want me,"  Dottie's voice went on calmly, her bites continuing, her fingernails now digging into the skin of Peggy's thighs.  

"Oh, yes," Peggy sighed.  

She started to pull at Dottie's clothes, but Dottie held her hands firmly at her sides, just using her own weight to keep her pressed against the back of the door.  "Can you be my girl, Peggy? Take what I give you, and do what I say, can you do that?"'

Peggy was drunk with lust but she understood.  Dottie needed to be in control.  When she thought back on how she made Dottie come on the floor of her room, it all became clear; Dottie was looking at her with such rage because she wasn’t in control.  That wasn't what Peggy was seeing now.  Dottie’s face was serious, focused, but not filled with that rage.  She nodded.  "Alright, I can do that."

Dottie leaned off of her and looked her up and down.  "Go lay down on the bed," she said after a moment.  

Peggy gave her a look that ached with anticipation, walking slowly over to the bed and lying down on it.

Dottie came over to the bed, lifted her dress so that she could straddle Peggy's hips, and looked calmly down at her.  She hooked a finger in Peggy's bra and snapped it once.  "Take this off."

Peggy quickly obliged.  

  
  


***

  
  


Dottie looked curiously at Peggy, stroking her bared breasts with intense fascination.  She leaned down, sucking and biting at the stiff, rosy nipples and feeling Peggy Carter's body arch and twist with pleasure.  

Dottie lifted her head and stared Peggy Carter in the face.  "Do you like that, Peggy?"

Peggy nodded, her face flushed.

"Do you want more?"

Again, Peggy nodded.

Dottie felt a warm surge in her chest.  Victory?  She wasn't sure.  She ran her fingers up the inside of Peggy’s thigh, spending a few more moments investigating the responses she could get with her mouth on Peggy Carter’s breast before looking up again.  "Are you my girl?"

"Yes," Peggy sighed, "I'm yours."

"Tell me what you want," Dottie persisted.

"I want your mouth."

Dottie smiled, and licked a trail from the base of her target's throat, down between her breasts, stopping at her ribs.  "There?"

"No,"  Peggy Carter sighed.  

Dottie moved down, nipping at her belly, settling just above the waistline of her panties.  "Here?"

"No," Peggy Carter groaned.

Dottie traced a finger down, very lightly, between Peggy Carter's legs, feeling even through her panties that she was very wet, and very ready.  She smiled at the shudder that went through her when she touched her.  "There?"  Outwardly calm, sincerely curious, but also very aware of the din going on in her body, the clamor of nerves that needed to be satisfied.

"Yes," Peggy breathed.  

Dottie nodded.  "Good.  Now ask nicely."

"Please," Peggy whispered.  "Kiss me there."

"Nicer than that," Dottie decided after a moment.

"Please, Dottie, please, I want your mouth there.  I'll do whatever you want, but please, kiss me there, Dottie," came the plea.

"Much better."  And still clothed, she leaned down, tugged off those panties, and began to send shivers of ecstasy through naked, lovely, aroused Peggy Carter.

It was interesting, Dottie mused.  She tasted better than she remembered.  After a few moments of slow, careful kissing and licking, she raised her head to get a look at her face.  She was entirely lost in what Dottie was doing to her.  Dottie felt a pang of envy.  What must that be like, she wondered briefly, to simply enjoy a moment like this?

But she lowered her head again, to continue taking what was hers.  As Peggy Carter's pleasure grew, so did hers; she was almost enjoying it through her.  Dottie felt her own hips moving slowly as she continued to pleasure Peggy Carter, remembering everything from last time.  She was delighted when she tried some soft sucking, and then harder, and felt Peggy Carter's fingers in her hair, first tugging at it, then pressing Dottie's face harder into her.  

She felt briefly frustrated, wishing she could be in Peggy's body and feel this uncomplicated pleasure as she did.  

And she was disappointed when it was over, and Peggy finished, writhing in the bed and panting, "Oh, oh God, oh bloody Christ.... God yes, Dottie, that's it..."

Dottie stroked Peggy, possessively, like a new toy, until Peggy stopped trembling at every little touch and opened her eyes to look at Dottie.

"And you won't let me?" she asked, hopeful.

Dottie shook her head.  "You can't, Peggy."

  
  


****

  
  


Peggy didn't want to push if Dottie didn't want to or couldn't talk about it.  But she wanted Dottie to understand.

"I only want to make you feel as good as you made me feel."

Dottie looked strangely resigned.  "You can't," she said again.  "Not if you don't want to hurt me."

Peggy sat partway up on her elbows, pondering this. "Are you able to feel good at all, without being hurt?"

Dottie seemed to consider her for a moment.  "When I'm alone," she said finally.

Peggy thought for a moment more.  "Well, why don't you... do what you do when you're alone?  And I'll stay next to you?"

Dottie looked at her, weighing this unexpected suggestion.  "You mean ... "

"Yes."

"And you'll watch?"

Peggy smiled.  "If that's all you want me to do."

Dottie thought for a moment more, then stripped partway, slipping out of her skirt, unbuttoning her blouse (though leaving it on), and then lying down next to Peggy in the cramped bed.  “Is this… is this going to work?”

"Well," Peggy said with a small smile, moving over a bit, "it would be a new thing for me, but ... yes, I think so.  I'd like to see you enjoy yourself."   And , she thought,   I'd like to watch you have an orgasm without looking like you're going to tear my head off when you're through.

Peggy rolled onto her side to face Dottie, and they looked at each other's faces with a new kind of seriousness.  Dottie closed her eyes, and her hand slowly drifted down between her legs.  She let out a long exhale as she started to stroke herself, and Peggy smiled.  

It was working.

  
  


******

  
  


Dottie lay in the bed beside Peggy, for a long time keeping her eyes closed.  This wasn't breaking the rules, she told herself.  This didn't count, because Peggy wasn't touching her.  She was taking care of herself.  It didn't count.

She still tasted Peggy on her lips, though.  Still smelled her, still felt the rhythm of her hips from moments ago.  She was still awash in those sense memories as she let go and stroked herself, slowly at first, feeling the heat spread through her body from that point of contact with her fingers.  

She heard Peggy's voice in her ear, her English accent, whispering, "Dottie ... you're very beautiful like this."

Dottie sighed.  She was moving her hips against her own hand now, growing hotter.

"Yes, that’s perfect, you’re perfect," she heard Peggy whispering.

Dottie moaned softly, quickening her pace.  "Peggy..." slipped out of her mouth.

"Are you thinking about what you just did to me?"  Peggy asked her. 

"Uh-huh," Dottie sighed.  She'd done this so many times, and some of those times had even been to thoughts of Peggy Carter.  But it was different this time.  It was different having her  here.

“It was wonderful, you know,” Peggy went on.  “You’re the best.”

The best.    Dottie shivered. Peggy was quiet for a few moments after that, letting Dottie do what she needed to do.  

"Dottie," Peggy whispered, "will it be alright if I kiss you a bit?"

Dottie's fingers stopped for a half a moment.  Her heart skipped a beat.  "Alright, Peggy."

And her fingers continued their steady rhythm, now accompanied by Peggy Carter's mouth, kissing her neck, her ear, her chin, her lips.  She felt Peggy’s fingers slide the open blouse off of her shoulder a little to kiss the bare skin underneath.

"I’m your girl, Dottie," Peggy's voice went on quietly in her ear.  "I'm all yours.  I’ll take everything you give me and I’ll do whatever you say.  You’ve complete control."

Dottie was close, she could feel it.  It wasn’t breaking the rules, but it was different than being alone.  Her heartbeat was pounding.  Her head was becoming chaos; she saw the light leaving the tiger’s eyes, she smelled Molly’s hair again, and she opened her eyes to look at Peggy.  Peggy’s face, those lips, her voice, her skin, that body that Dottie didn’t merely want to fuck, but to inhabit, to live inside of… Peggy, her mission, her target, and the object of a lust that had supposedly been tortured out of her.  She heard herself moaning Peggy’s name, her free hand pulling Peggy’s mouth to hers to kiss deeply and muffle the sounds of her climax.  

Alone, but not alone.

Peggy was looking at her, eyes full of tenderness and desire.  “Was it alright for you?”

Dottie nodded once.  “You?”

Peggy stroked her bare shoulder.  “Better than alright. A singular experience.”

Dottie gave a wry half-smile.  “It was a real good idea, Peggy.”

They settled facing each other on the pillows, drowsy and satisfied.  Peggy found Dottie’s hand and took a few fingers into her mouth, and Dottie closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Peggy’s tongue licking the taste from her fingers.

Would she be able to take Peggy Carter down, if it came to that?  Of course, she reassured herself.  She was the best.  She had been to bed with Howard Stark and wouldn’t think twice about dropping him.  Wanting a little fun didn’t mean she was victim to the sort of mewling sentimentality that left Peggy keeping old pictures of pre-serum Captain America in her vanity mirror. 

“Shall I  stay?” Peggy asked after a while, sleep threatening to pull her eyelids closed.  “I can go if you’d rather.”

Dottie shook her head.  “I won’t be able to sleep if you stay.  I’m no good sleeping in a bed with another person.”

Peggy kissed her, long and slow.  Dottie didn’t mind it.  

“Alright,” Peggy sighed.  “I don’t want to keep you awake.”

Dottie watched Peggy get up, get dressed.  She was a sight, that Peggy Carter.  Too bad she played for the wrong team.  “Maybe next time,” she said, not bothering to hide that she enjoyed looking at Peggy putting herself back together.

“Next time?” Peggy commented with a raised eyebrow.  

“Sure, Peg.  Next time.”  As she watched Peggy slip her shoes back on, she added, “Come here and kiss me before you go, huh?”

  
  
  


*****

  
  


The next morning at breakfast, the Times was sitting open to an article about the incident at the circus.  The final paragraph mentioned nothing about Dottie or Peggy, only stating that “circus personnel” subdued the tiger.  

“Didn’t you two go to that circus last night?” Gloria called from the other end of the table, chewing on a mouthful of breakfast sausage.  “Were you in the middle of all that?”

“Oh,” Dottie answered, perfectly wide-eyed, “we did, but we were real lucky.  I was getting a headache from sitting too close to the band, so we left before the tiger act.”

Peggy and Dottie exchanged secretive smiles over the breakfast table as the girls chattered on, and then moved on to some other discussion.

Peggy thought again, unbidden,  More alike than not.


	6. Something Like Romance

Even spies had to do laundry.

Dottie and Peggy found themselves in the laundry room at the same time often enough that it became a late-night routine of sorts; putting on their washing, putting their clothes in the dryer, slipping upstairs for some of the peculiar sex they seemed to find working for them, and then coming back downstairs to retrieve their laundry and toss it into the dumbwaiter and send it up to their floor.

Jarvis had tried to impress upon Peggy from almost the very beginning that it was important that she lean on other people, that she let a few people in.  Even Steve had needed her, he pointed out.  And he was right.

Dottie was not the type that Peggy would have expected to find herself leaning on.  In truth, she knew it was a cheap, incomplete sort of leaning; Peggy found herself frequently surprised by Dottie, and was of two minds about whether she liked that or not.  Peggy prided herself on sizing up a person quickly, and didn’t entirely enjoy having her perceptions miss the mark.  On the other hand, it was something of a relief to think that perhaps there was more substance to Dottie than a waifish, naive woman-child; she clung to the hope that there was enough depth to this pretty, athletic, leggy blonde that she could cobble together a relationship underneath all the weird but indisputably hot sex.

And so, she’d go off to work at the SSR, march home exhausted and searching for reasons not to feel defeated.  If their schedules matched up, which they often did, Peggy would pick Dottie up at the dance studio and they’d get dinner at the Automat together, Peggy devilishly wrecking Dottie’s careful diet by dropping fries on her plate.   It was a necessity, since neither was a particularly gifted cook.  Or, more accurately, Peggy had a knack for causing meals to burst into flames, and Dottie was skilled in the preparation of Midwestern “cuisine” that involved canned mushroom soups, crushed-up chips, and other things that Peggy couldn’t bear to eat after a few heroic attempts.  

It wasn’t exactly romantic, but it was something.  It was a bubble of near-normalcy in the midst of a hateful job, a side-mission that tore open old wounds, and the overwhelming sense that something terrible was bearing down on her and the world that she wasn’t going to be able to stop.  It was steadying in its regularity, and even the strangeness of the sex became familiar and comforting.  Once in a while, if they’d had a bit to drink, Dottie would do something unexpected, asserting a dominance or a level of risk that was a notch or two up from their usual.  Peggy had surprised herself by finding she rather enjoyed being bent over the edge of the dryer with Dottie taking her from behind, and she found that watching Dottie bring herself off afterward was satisfying enough. She continued to wish that she could give Dottie pleasure the same way that Dottie did for her, and she'd have liked it better if they would stay the night in each other's bed once in a while, but it was enough.  It worked.

In fact, as things progressed, Dottie was more willing to allow limited participation from her; a careful hand on her stomach, a little more kissing.  It still seemed that she most enjoyed Peggy’s talking; Peggy knew that Dottie enjoyed her accent (it was the first thing she’d remarked on when they met), and figured out pretty quickly what Dottie liked to hear, which was that she was the best, she was in control, that Peggy was her girl, willing and ready to do whatever Dottie wanted.  Dottie didn’t need to be told she was beautiful, didn’t need to hear that her body was gorgeous or that the sounds she made were like music.  She wanted to hear that she was in charge, that Peggy wanted her so badly she’d do anything she was asked.  

Even so odd a thing as this, if continued long enough, inevitably evolved into caring, at least for Peggy.  

  


*********

  


Dottie continued to act like the girl who'd just fallen off the turnip truck, but she could tell Peggy didn't entirely buy it, and in fact seemed to want her to be more than that.  And Dottie wanted to give her that, reasoning that she needed to hold her interest to keep her close and maintain her access. So she'd occasionally admit to having read something like Crime and Punishment, concocting some story about how her high school dance teacher Madam Zaslavskaya had refused to teach her until she'd read some Dostoevsky.  

Peggy never forgot, though, that Dottie's preferences ran toward the wholesome, and so often she'd bring Dottie a lollipop or some other little sweet when picking her up at the studio.  Once, while walking downtown, they passed a playground that was empty because it was late, and chilly, and Peggy spontaneously pulled Dottie through the gates and, absurdly, pushed her on the swing for several minutes, till their noses and lips were cold and they kissed to warm them up.

Ivchenko remarked on her mood at some point during one of their phone calls, observing that she seemed a little off.  She responded with her usual cool dismissiveness, which seemed to satisfy him.

And why shouldn’t it?  She was as effective as ever.  She brought down targets, observed locations, collected information, and moved the pieces as she'd been instructed to do.  Up to and including getting close enough to Peggy to kill her easily if she was told to.  It certainly made snooping through Peggy's things easier to do if she could do it when Peggy had fallen asleep after sex.

She sometimes stole little things that were not exactly mission critical; a little something silky from the delicates drawer, to enjoy Peggy’s scent on nights they didn't get together.  Small things like hairpins, handkerchiefs, taking delight in the notion that she was carrying around stolen bits of Peggy in her purse, wearing them in her hair.  She coveted especially that special tube of lipstick, Sweet Dreams, which she was certain Peggy would miss if she nicked it, unlike a slip or a loose stocking.

She still did her job.  She followed Peggy when she wasn't on her own missions, observed her.  Followed her to work, watched her sometimes through the scope of her rifle when she was seated at her desk.  She seemed to spend a lot of time doing paperwork and fetching lunch and coffee, for an agent with such a reputation for strength, skill and bravery.  Even the small taste Dottie had gotten of those things left her certain that the men of the SSR failed to appreciate the value of that particular asset.  Men, she thought with disdain, as she often did.

She'd sit quietly, with Peggy in her cross-hairs, studying her serious face, the tilt of her head when she was delivering what was clearly a briefcase full of British sarcasm to some deserving oaf, the curve of her leg when she rested her feet up on the desk on those occasions when nobody else was around.  She was one of the finer sights New York city had to offer, Dottie thought.  Too bad she played for the wrong team.

  
  


******

  
  


Neither Dottie nor Peggy had any idea why Gloria had been so insistent that they drop by her place for cocktails this one particular evening, but after a pleasant dinner, they knocked on Gloria’s door.  Agnes opened it, ushered them inside, and offered them a seat on Gloria’s day bed.  Ella Fitzgerald was playing softly in the corner and Dottie noticed the array of bottles atop the Chesterfield near the door.  Gloria was lounging on the stuffed armchair and looking like she was already a drink or two ahead of them.  “Hi, girls!” she chirped, seeming overjoyed to see them.  “Agnes, honey, get these girls some drinks, will you?  Dottie, what do you take?”  Before Dottie could answer, she went on, “She seems like a vodka tonic girl, am I right, Dottie?  Vodka tonic?  Agnes, honey, get her a vodka tonic?”

“Oh, um, sure,” Dottie answered, hesitant.  She glanced over at Peggy seated beside her, wondering what was going on.

As Agnes was fixing Dottie’s vodka tonic, Gloria chattered on, “Now Peggy, I don’t know what you like, there’s bourbon, there’s white wine in the fridge, and um … Agnes, honey, are we out of amaretto?”

“Nope,” Agnes answered, slicing a bit of lime into Dottie’s cocktail.

“Amaretto sours, if you want,” Gloria finished.  She pulled out a silver cigarette case and popped one on her mouth.  “You gals mind if I smoke?  I can open a window, should I open a window?”

Peggy smiled politely.  “No, it’s fine, thank you, Gloria.  An amaretto sour sounds lovely.”

Agnes strolled over and handed Dottie a large vodka tonic.  She sipped it.  Agnes had mixed it strong.  Dottie feigned surprise.  “Oh gosh, thanks, Agnes!  I hope it’s not too strong for me!”

Gloria was casting about the table and windowsills looking for something while she talked, before surrendering and chirping, “Agnes, honey, do you have a-”

But Agnes was already leaning over Gloria’s shoulder, striking a match, and lighting the cigarette dangling from her lips.  

“Aw, thanks, doll, you’re the best!” Gloria sighed, smiling sweetly at Agnes.  

Agnes smiled back and leaned down, plucked the lit cigarette from Gloria’s lips, gave her a quick kiss, and popped the cigarette back.  Dottie was mildly surprised.  She and Peggy exchanged another slightly confused look.  As Agnes walked back over to the Chesterfield to mix Peggy’s drink, Gloria gave her a little pinch on the ass, earning herself a little squeak from Agnes.  “Hey!”

“She’s an absolute angel,” Gloria told them earnestly, “I can’t even tell you.  She always knows what I need, and she mixes a mean martini.”

Dottie was looking back and forth between them.

“So, um, Gloria….”  Peggy began uncertainly, “thanks for inviting us over…”  She paused and took the drink from Agnes’s hands.

“But you’re wondering why,” Gloria finished. “Well, to keep it real simple, we’re the welcome wagon.  Don’t look so surprised, girls, Agnes and I figured you two out weeks ago.”

Dottie and Peggy looked at each other nervously and then back at Gloria.  Agnes glided back over to Gloria and parked herself delicately on her lap, arm around her shoulder, and planted another kiss on her ear.

“I’m… I’m sorry, you what?”  Peggy’s voice sounded unusually confused.

“We figured out you two were a couple.  I mean, weeks ago.”

Dottie had never been part of a couple.  Never even been mistaken for part of one.  And now she had to wonder whether Peggy thought of them as a couple, too.  “Oh…” was all she could say.

“Oh, please, girls, it’s alright!” Gloria reassured them.  “There are a lot of us here at Griffith.  Nobody cares, even the girls who aren’t like us.”

Peggy was looking at Dottie awkwardly.  The two of them sipped at their drinks and Peggy, after a few moments of indecision, uncomfortably placed her hand over Dottie’s and gave her a tight little smile.  

Gloria grinned and blew smoke.  “You two, you poor things.  You’ve never been queer around anyone else, have you?”  

Dottie stuck with her shyness.  “Well, I’ve... actually never been with any other girls except Peggy.”  Funny but for once, the truth fit with the persona she’d constructed.

Peggy’s face briefly registered surprise at this, but she lifted her glass gamely.  “Not a novice, but neither a professional,” was all she supplied.

Gloria clapped her hands with delight.  “Oh, thank goodness you two moved in here!  Not only did you find each other, but there are enough of us to qualify as an Indian raiding party.”

“Oh?  How many is that?” Dottie heard Peggy ask with amusement.

Gloria waved her cigarette, almost ashing on Agnes, who was quick with the ceramic ashtray, catching the ember dropping from Gloria’s smoke.  “Figure of speech, Peggy,” she replied airily.  “Anyway, you two came to the right place.  Wanted to let you know we were here and let you know there’s a real crowd here at the Griffith, so you two don’t have to hide in your rooms at night if you don’t wanna.”

Dottie collected herself.  “Gosh, Gloria, thanks a lot,” she said, finding a cheerier demeanor.  

She and Peggy stayed for a couple of cocktails.  It’d be rude not to.  They couldn’t quite bring themselves to hang all over each other the way Gloria and Agnes seemed comfortable doing, but after the second drink, they were holding hands and leaning on each other a little.  Dottie remembered something.  “Oh, Peggy, can you hand me my purse?”  

Peggy passed it over, and Dottie reached in and pulled out a little box.  “I got you a little something.”  She handed it to Peggy.

Peggy took the small box, wrapped in brown paper, and kissed Dottie lightly on the lips.  It was still strange to do this in front of anyone else.  She tore off the paper, and inside was a box of Taylor's of Harrogate Afternoon Darjeeling tea in an elegant burgundy box.  Peggy’s face lit up.  “Thank you, Dottie, it’s my favorite!  How did you know?”

Dottie smiled.  “Just a lucky guess, Peggy.  I knew you liked tea and I saw that at the store, I was hoping it was the kind you liked.”  

In truth, she had overheard a conversation one evening when she was tailing Peggy, in which Peggy had been bemoaning to that nattily-dressed Englishman the difficulty of finding a decent Darjeeling in this neighborhood.  The Englishman had replied that he had to special order his if he wanted anything good like Taylor's of Harrogate.

Naturally, Dottie, after calling around a few places and discovering that it was indeed difficult to find, went straight to the Waldorf Astoria, slipped in posing as a maid, and stole a few unopened boxes from the kitchen.

"What store?" Peggy exclaimed. "Where? I've looked all over for a box of Taylor's!"

Dottie turned coy.  "I can't tell you," she replied teasingly, "or you won't need to keep me around anymore."

"Don't worry so much," Peggy murmured, matching Dottie's flirty tone.  She leaned in and kissed her, momentarily seeming to be less concerned about the other women in the room.

"Aww, look," Gloria sighed, "they just warm my little heart."

"I don't think that's your heart, honey," Agnes quipped.

  
  


************

  
  


After a third cocktail, Peggy and Dottie ended up back in Dottie's room, and things were loose and a little rough, the way they were when they'd been drinking.  They upset some furniture and left clothes strewn around the room; Peggy swore like a sailor and Dottie was pleasantly aggressive.  Peggy had figured out just the right amount of token resistance to put up to bring that hot, hungry look to Dottie's face that meant Dottie was going to throw her against a wall and fuck her.  And then fuck her again, loose-limbed, hanging halfway off the edge of the bed.  

Afterwards, they crawled into bed and spent a few minutes exchanging kisses that went from rough to tender and back again.

Dottie paused for air after a few minutes.  "Peggy?" she asked.  "Are Gloria and Agnes right?"

Peggy ran her fingers through Dottie's hair, still breathless and sweating.  "Are they right about what, darling?"

"Well... Are we a couple?"

Peggy smirked. "A couple of what?"

Dottie pouted and punched Peggy's shoulder. "Come on, Peggy."

Peggy stroked Dottie's cheek, lightly. She thought for a moment before answering.  "Well, I certainly don't do this with anyone else."

Dottie stared at her, thinking for a long time about that answer.  “Well, me neither, Peggy, but…”

Peggy kissed Dottie a few times, then answered more seriously.  “I’ve become quite fond of you, Dottie.  Really.  I do enjoy this…”   She kissed her again.  “...but I haven’t wanted to push the issue of what we ought to call it because I didn’t want to frighten you.”

“Well, Gloria did that for us,” Dottie sighed.

Peggy smiled.  “I don’t think we should worry so much about that, you know.  I’m your girl.  And you’re my girl, if you’d like to be.  And if not …”  Peggy kissed her again.  “...you can call it whatever you’d like instead.  It doesn’t matter what we call it, it just matters whether we’re enjoying it, and each other.”

“I am,” Dottie sighed, pressing herself against Peggy.  

“Then so am I.”  They kissed again, long and deep, and at that moment, Peggy dearly wished Dottie would ever get completely naked in bed.  Sometimes she particularly wanted to feel all of their skin against each other.  She sighed.  “Dottie, can I ask you something?”

“Hm?”

“What… what happened to you?”

Dottie gave her that stare, not the intensely focused one, but that other one … the frozen, faraway look that unnerved her just as much in an entirely different way.  “What do you mean, Peggy?”

Peggy hesitated.  “I mean, Dottie … it’s just … it seems like you’ve been through something that you’ve not told me about… and I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you without realizing it.  It would help if I knew what it was.”

Dottie gave her a small, cold little smile.  “There’s nothing to tell, Peggy.”

Peggy gave a resigned sigh.  If she didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t want to talk about it.  “Alright, Dottie.”  She was still a little tipsy, and now worn out from sex, but she hauled herself up to her elbows.  “Listen, Dottie … I’m going to be going away for a few days-”

Dottie looked suddenly alarmed.  “Where?”

“Just going to visit a friend in the Catskills whose husband just passed recently.  I’ll be back before you know it.”  She was going to Russia, into the field again, finally.  She was looking forward to it, actually.  “But… it’s getting quite late and I really ought to get some sleep.  I’ve got to leave quite early.”  She started to roll out of bed.

 Dottie caught her shoulder and pulled her back for a kiss, and then another.  “Alright Peggy,” she whispered into the kiss, “don’t be too long, will you?”  Peggy found herself being pulled into another long kiss, and Dottie seemed to almost want her to stay.

Almost.

Peggy stood up, wearily tossed her clothes back on and prepared to make the short walk down the hall back to her room.  She came back to the bedside one more time, and leaned down to kiss Dottie again.  Dottie grabbed the lapels of Peggy’s blazer and hung on, pulling her harder into the kiss; it was almost as if she was trying to pull her back down into the bed, but after a few moments, she released her.  “Have a good trip, Peggy,” she said softly.  “Try not to miss me too much, huh?”

“No promises.”  Peggy gave her a wink, and made her way back down the hall.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested in some laundry room smut that didn't make it into this chapter for narrative reasons, go here:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4437608


	7. Snows Always Melt

Dottie’s sleep was restless in the days that Peggy was gone. Her dreams seemed to increase in intensity. They were never clear; it was always a sense memory, a sound, a shape, a sensation, hurling itself against the dark of her sleep as if trying to reach her through a thick, black curtain. Or they were moments too brief to know if they were real or imagined. But she remembered the feel of the Siberian snow on her bare arms, the face of a tiger. She remembered the echo of Peggy’s voice in her ear. It was all still obscured for her, just out of reach, but they hurled themselves more insistently than they had been. 

Dottie knew where Peggy was. 

Everything was moving forward just as Ivchenko had told her it would. She knew Peggy was in Russia, that she was going to be visiting the Red Room. She had a strange feeling about that; Peggy tromping around in the place that made Dottie who and what she was, the only place she had real memories of at all. It felt oddly intimate, in a way that Peggy herself would probably never appreciate. 

Dottie found herself hoping that Peggy made it out of Russia alive. She didn’t think it was right for anyone else to kill Peggy except her. She felt a peculiar, unpleasant sickness in her gut at the thought. Peggy was like her; fierce and strong, tough and intelligent. But Peggy was also not like her; she loved, she grieved, she felt loneliness, she felt pleasure at being touched by another human being. It might be that those things made Peggy weaker, but Dottie also knew that Peggy might be the only chance she would have to feel those feelings herself. Still, Dottie was an Agent of the Red Room, and she would do what she was made for. 

But not without feeling those things that had nagged at her mind for so long. 

****** 

Peggy returned to her room late at night, feeling some satisfaction at the job she’d done in Russia, and the recognition she’d gotten from the men around her for it. For once. But even after the drinks they’d had to celebrate the success of their mission, she was still left feeling uncomfortable at the realization of what was going on in that place. The girl that had attacked them was shockingly young; what had she been put through in order to be turned into such an effective killer? And those cuffs, those small handcuffs on all of the beds… it gave her a chill just to think of it, that these girls were enslaved, and put through god only knew what, at such a young age. The girl that attacked them couldn’t have been more than ten, but she fought with the skill of someone who had been training for at least that long. You don’t get performance like that out of a girl by offering her a lollipop as an incentive. 

And surprisingly (or not), she thought of Dottie, too. Whatever had happened to her couldn’t have been that, but she reflected that some damage had been done to her that was unspeakable in its own way, and that she needed to do more to make herself a safe place for Dottie. 

She was too tightly wound to sleep. She sat brooding in her bed for a while, still awake and dressed, when a knock came at the door. At this late hour, it could only be Dottie. "Peggy?" her voice came through the door, sounding hopeful and perhaps a bit wistful. 

Peggy got up and opened the door. She was wearing a pink dressing gown, and by the look of things, not much underneath. She smiled and stood aside, letting her in. 

"Sorry, Peggy," she immediately apologized, "i know it's real late and you're probably tired. I couldn't sleep. I thought I heard you come in and-" 

Peggy interrupted her with a gentle kiss. "It's alright, Dottie. I'm glad to see you." 

Dottie stopped talking and smiled, but there was a sad, haunted quality to it. 

"Are you alright?" 

Dottie nodded. "I'm fine, Peg, I just missed you a whole lot."  Peggy melted a little at this.

She pulled Peggy in for another kiss, soft and even tentative. Peggy wasn't sure whether Dottie was looking for more, but she hooked her arms around her waist and kissed back, matching Dottie's softness. Peggy's mind was still in Russia, still in the Red Room, but Dottie was insistently, quietly drawing her back. "Dottie..." Peggy began, struggling with every doubt she'd had about treading around in Dottie's brokenness. 

But Dottie took Peggy's hand, loosened the pink dressing gown, and slid Peggy's hand inside it. Her suspicions were confirmed: no slip, no bra strap, just Dottie's warm skin. "Peggy, I want to be with you real bad right now." Her voice felt small. She sounded strangely young.

Peggy looked up at her face, which seemed tight with ... desperation? Grief? She didn't know. She pushed the dressing gown open a little more so that she could see Dottie's hand resting on hers, holding it to her warm, firm breast. Peggy felt the nipple harden against her palm, and found her own body respond in sympathy. She bit her lip. "Are you sure?" 

Dottie shrugged the dressing gown off her shoulders, and it dropped in a silky heap around her feet. Peggy was surprised to see that Dottie was entirely naked underneath. "I'm sure," she promised, and the force of her stare was enough to brush Peggy's hesitation aside. 

A sudden ache went through her; she'd wanted to feel Dottie's skin next to hers, since the very first time. Peggy noticed that Dottie's other wrist was bandaged. She paused. "Are you alright?" she asked, pointing to it. 

Dottie smiled sheepishly. "Hurt it while I was practicing the other day." 

Peggy stroked Dottie's bare arm, her eyes drifting over Dottie’s body. Her fingers followed, lightly whispering over Dottie’s skin, tracing her curves. “I’ll be gentle,” she promised. She drew Dottie close and kissed her, slow and deep, sliding her hands down Dottie's bare back, gripping her hips, stroking up her waist, feeling little tremors go through Dottie as she did. Her skin was warm velvet under Peggy's touch. Her mouth tasted like peppermint, as it often did from the mint candies she liked. 

Dottie’s unbandaged hand slid up under the hem of Peggy’s dress, pushing it up, her fingers scrabbling at Peggy’s thigh. “I want to feel you,” she mumbled into Peggy’s lips. “Please, take this off.” 

"Let's move this to the bed," Peggy suggested, her breath quickening. 

Dottie nodded, and lay down on the bed, stretched out for Peggy to take in while she removed her own clothes; blouse, skirt, slip, stockings, underthings. She was every bit what Peggy had imagined; long, lean, toned, with just enough curve at the hip and breasts to make Peggy wet just looking at her. She watched Peggy with wide eyes, those awed, innocent eyes that Peggy had seen just about everywhere but in the bedroom. 

It was like a jolt of electricity when Peggy laid herself against Dottie; all of her, all of her skin, nothing separating them. Their bodies moved against each other out of pure instinct, feeling each other, exultant at the closeness. How much time went by as they lay, kissing slow, hot kisses, pushing against each other, it was impossible to say. Peggy was with Dottie because she craved closeness; wrapped in Dottie's long, muscled limbs, winding against her soft, sweet-smelling skin, it finally began to feel like very much like what she craved. It all might have started because Dottie was gorgeous and seemed interested in going to bed with her, but now, finally, it was starting to feel like that trail of dinners and laundry and candies and boxes of tea was leading to something more than that. 

Dottie pressed Peggy onto her back and kissed down her stomach, and Peggy tried to object, because she wanted more of Dottie's skin, but to no avail. Dottie had settled between her thighs and was licking and kissing her with unwavering intent. She had done this enough times that she knew how to make Peggy come, which she did, spectacularly. 

It seemed as though, apart from the nakedness, they were following their normal routine. Dottie carefully climbed back up the bed, settled herself beside Peggy, and leaned into a kiss. Her hand slid down and, amid their deep, slow kisses, Dottie began to stroke herself, the rhythm of her arm rocking them ever so slightly. "That's it," Peggy whispered against her lips. "That's it, darling. I'm your girl, tell me what you want me to do." 

Dottie pulled back and looked at Peggy. With her hand sporting the bandaged wrist, she took Peggy's hand. "Peggy..." she sighed quietly, still stroking with her other hand. "Peggy... I want to be your girl, tonight." And she brought Peggy's hand down to rest on top of the one that she was touching herself with. 

Peggy's heart skipped. "Are you sure about this? I can't hurt you." 

Dottie nodded. "I'm sure, Peggy. I want you there. Be there with me, ok?" 

They kissed for some minutes more, while Peggy's hand moved together with Dottie's, feeling her pace, her motion, softly up and down. Dottie parted her fingers, letting two of Peggy's fingers slip between hers and make contact, dipping into the soft, warm wet flesh of her pussy. They both gasped; Peggy had been aching to feel her like this. It felt incredible. 

"Are you alright?" she whispered to Dottie again. 

Dottie nodded. "I want you there, Peggy," she whispered again. “You belong there.” 

They continued for a few minutes this way. Peggy kissed Dottie's lips, continuing to whisper those things she liked: _You're in control of this, darling, I'm here to do whatever you want._

************* 

Dottie couldn't believe it was happening. She had managed to sneak around the wall. She was the best. She was better than the Red Room. She had bandaged her wrist to cover the scars left on it from uncounted years of sleeping cuffed to the bed. She was winning. She was beating the system. She was the best. 

She had always felt cold inside, for all of what she could remember of her adult life. She was the Siberian wood, snow in Bogorodsk, ice on the windows of the Red Room, clear and cold. But something was happening now. 

Peggy's fingers moving with hers were like a ... Well, she had no frame of reference. It wasn't like when she touched herself alone. It was the alertness in the nerves surprised by another's touch, the surprise amplifying everything till it was blinding as sunshine. "Peggy," she moaned, "It's so good... Is it good like this for you?" 

"Yes, darling," she heard Peggy whisper. "And it can be even better." 

Dottie moaned again. "Oh, Peg... I want to feel it like you feel it..." She knew her head was tilted back, knew her voice was already coming out ragged, and she didn’t care. 

“Tell me,” Peggy murmured against her lips. 

“I want you inside me,” she gasped. 

She felt Peggy’s hesitation. “I want to … are you sure?" 

Dottie nodded. “Please, Peg,” she pleaded. “Make me your girl tonight, please?” 

She felt Peggy’s fingers separate from hers, felt them slowly slide down her wet folds and stop, touching her entrance in soft, slow circles. Dottie’s fingers continued to stroke herself outside, and her breath was becoming short. “I’m going to go inside you now, darling," she heard Peggy say. 

Dottie went still for a moment as Peggy's fingers slid slowly, gently inside her. She felt herself quiver around them, letting them ever so slowly push into her, bringing that blinding sunshine of pleasure with them. She lay with her mouth open, eyes closed, unable to make a sound but for a little tiny choking noise in the back of her throat. Peggy pushed all the way in, and then stopped, waiting. “Is this what you want?” she heard Peggy ask quietly. 

Dottie could only nod. Her fingers went back to stroking herself, but now she had Peggy’s fingers inside her too, moving slowly, softly in and out of her. She heard herself making noises that were probably too loud and felt Peggy’s lips cover hers, whispering gently against them, “Sssh, ssh, it’s alright darling.” 

It felt like an out of body experience; to have someone inside her, to have it feel good, to want them there, crave their touch, not need to be punished for it. “Peg,” she moaned, “it’s supposed to be like this, isn’t it?” 

“Yes, darling,” she heard Peggy say, “this is how it’s meant to feel. It’s not hurting you, is it?” 

Dottie shook her head. She couldn’t open her eyes. She was afraid to do anything to break the moment. It took everything she had to keep the darkness in her head at bay, everything she had to let herself lie back and let Peggy be inside her, each slow thrust of her fingers making Dottie bite back a moan. Her hips moved against Peggy’s fingers, trying to take them in, feel all of them. Her body wanted to hold onto Peggy, keep her deep inside, and she found herself with her hands gripping both of Peggy’s shoulders, hanging on hard as if she needed to keep herself from shattering. Ice on the windows, clear and cold, but no-one, not even she, had accounted for the fact that winters always end, and ice and snows always melt. 

**** 

Peggy realized that Dottie was no longer touching herself, just hanging onto her instead. She had never seen Dottie lose herself like this. “Are you alright?” she asked again. Dottie nodded, eyes still closed. 

“Please don’t stop,” she sighed. Peggy looked at her, sweating, shaking, intense pleasure written on her face in a way she’d never seen. Most of the time, when Dottie would get herself off in bed, she liked to look at Peggy. But she was utterly surrendered. Her hands were gripping Peggy's shoulders like she was all there was in the world. 

Peggy had remained calm and steady in the midst of firefights, and she would do it now, for Dottie, despite her heart thudding in her chest and the blood burning in her veins. Despite nearly coming undone the moment she'd slowly pressed inside her and seen the look of beautiful, aching vulnerability on her face. Despite finally tasting what had been maddeningly just out of reach for this whole time. She would remain solid, and give Dottie the freedom to melt under her touch.

“Darling,” Peggy said softly, “I’m going to take over what you were doing, too, alright?” 

Dottie nodded. 

Peggy repositioned herself, kissing down Dottie’s stomach and settling her weight half on her, half off. She continued thrusting inside her, now laying a thumb gentle and firm against her clit, and Dottie bit down on the pillow to keep from crying out. Peggy kissed at the tops of her thighs, her stomach, the bones of her hips, dragging her mouth soft and wet along Dottie’s skin. Dottie was tensed, her muscles gleaming with a sheen of sweat, a few blond curls sticking to her forehead. God, she was beautiful, Peggy thought. God, this had been worth the wait. Dottie was moving harder against Peggy’s fingers, so Peggy quickened her pace. “Do you want more, darling?” she whispered. 

Dottie moaned quietly. “Yes … please… harder… faster…” It was clear that she could barely breathe but she wanted Peggy to know what she wanted. “...please, just… just take me….” 

Peggy shifted over and settled herself fully on top of Dottie, face to face with her, now resting between her thighs, fingers still inside her, moving in and out of her with the force of her own hips. She surged against her, dizzy with the need to give her that most raw of pleasures. Her thrusts became shorter and quicker, drawing Dottie’s sighs from someplace deeper in her belly. Some voice in her brain, some hungry, primitive, animal part of her, wanted to claim and possess the blonde trembling underneath her. But her other hand went to Dottie’s face, gently wiping the sweat off of her, stroking her cheek. “This is everything, darling,” she whispered against Dottie’s lips. “I can only take what you give me.” 

******* 

Dottie had no sense of place. She held onto Peggy, letting herself be fucked, the dizzy trembling feeling in her stomach growing. She knew there were dark things in her head, she knew there were tigers, and snows, and pain, but she couldn’t feel them. She could only smell Peggy’s perfume, feel her weight, hear her voice, and the sound of her own moaning. She didn’t want it to end, but she knew it had to. She could feel the end coming. She could feel herself drawing closer to it, Peggy’s body, lips and fingers pulling her there. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. 

“Peggy…” she moaned, “Peggy, wait….” 

Peggy slowed, and then stopped. Dottie opened her eyes and saw Peggy looking back at her, concerned, tender, wanting her. “Peggy… I… I want to give you everything, I want to just belong to you... but I can’t.” 

Peggy stroked her hair, gently kissed her. “Do you want me to stop?” 

Dottie shook her head. 

Peggy resumed her thrusts, slow and gentle for the moment. Dottie was biting back moans. “Darling, you don’t belong to anyone but you. I don’t own you. I’m just making you feel good. You belong to you, and nobody else.” 

_It’s not true,_ Dottie thought, _I belong to_ … But she wouldn’t let their names enter her mind, not now. Not with Peggy on top of her, moving inside her, making her feel like she was turning into liquid, into sunlight. She might never feel this again. 

“You’re still in control of this, darling. If you want me to stop, I’ll stop. If you want more, I’ll give you more.” 

_Her face,_ Dottie thought, _she wants me, she looks at me like she wants me. I don’t care if it makes her weak. I don’t care if it makes me weak. She wants me. I want her._ “Please, Peggy, finish me,” she whispered, barely hearing the sound come from her throat. 

And then Peggy’s mouth covered hers, Peggy’s body moved against hers, Peggy’s fingers hooked deep inside her, moving harder, faster, with intensity of purpose. Peggy’s touch had found the place in her that loved being pushed, pressed, and loved it best when it was done deep and fast. This was what it meant to have it feel good to be fucked. She didn’t know what to do with her hands; they grabbed the sheets, the pillow, the headboard, they scratched down Peggy’s back, pulled at her hair. “There, Peggy, there…” she panted, “that’s it, there.” 

Her body was rising up off the mattress, pressing into Peggy; she felt that she would squeeze herself into Peggy if she could, that she would have every inch of her body fucked by every inch of Peggy’s. She found herself holding onto her, as if clinging harder would pull her further away from the darkness, the pain, the shame, everything that had been trying to break into her dreams at night. Peggy’s body was a rock in a storm that Dottie could feel slipping beyond her control. 

And when she finished, everything went silent. For a moment there was nothing in her head. It was clear. For a moment, she was something else; sublime, sunlight, liquid, perfume on the wind. For a moment, she was winter made spring; for a moment, she was Stravinsky's violent, beautiful upheaval, she was the force behind Nijinsky's demanding, erotically charged dance, and she washed over Peggy; and it was strange and beautiful and brutal and she clung onto her, whispering, “Peggy, don’t go yet, don’t go. Stay inside me for a minute, just for a minute,” as her body trembled underneath Peggy’s and her insides quivered and clutched at Peggy’s fingers. 

She looked at Peggy, her dark hair sweat-dampened and sticking to her face, her red lips parted and breath coming in deep, thick pulls. She looked exhausted, beautifully bedraggled, delicate sweat like dew on her forehead, the finest thing Dottie had ever seen. _It wasn’t me,_ _it was her_ , she realized. _I’m not the one who got around the Red Room, she is_. 

She wasn’t going to think right now about the things she had to do. She was going to think about being naked against Peggy’s body, holding Peggy’s fingers inside her. Kissing Peggy’s lips, full and delicious. 

Peggy’s hand stroked her hair, her face. They kissed again, and then Peggy shifted off of her, laying down on her side next to her, continuing to look tenderly at her. “Are you alright?” 

Dottie thought about it for a moment. Was she? She wasn’t sure. She said, “I think so.” 

Peggy put an arm around Dottie and drew her close. She felt like soft, warm breezes and she smelled of flowers opening, of spring and sex. Dottie nestled her head in the curve of Peggy’s neck and stayed there for a long while, listening to their breathing, hearing it slowing down and syncing up. 

Sleep was tugging at her eyes. Peggy looked at her, her eyes looking heavy as well. “Dottie, you look like you’re ready to fall asleep. Should we get you back to your room?” 

But Dottie pulled her tighter. She wasn’t ready to extricate herself from this moment. She suddenly had a new appreciation for every one of those nights that she had fucked Peggy senseless and Peggy had gotten up and gone back to her own bed. “Not yet, Peggy, not yet.” 

She felt herself getting sleepier. _I’ve got the bandage on my wrist,_ she thought. _It’ll be alright. I don’t need the cuff tonight. It’s only one night. It’ll be alright._


	8. Bad Dreams

Peggy was dreaming of Russia. 

She dreamed of a hot spring sun that broke apart the sparkling sheets of snow atop the mountains. She dreamed of the face of the mountains, dazzling against the blue sky, beginning to shift, and those great sheets of snow begin to thunder down toward her where she stood, halfway up its side. She stood immobile, the way one sometimes does in dreams (or nightmares) as the avalanche overtook her. 

She didn't feel the cold, so much as the weight of it. It felt heavy, so heavy on her chest. She couldn't breathe. She gasped for air but there was none to be had, only snow and ice. She forced herself awake. 

For a split second she thought she must still be dreaming, because her chest still felt heavy, and she still got nothing when she tried to pull in air. But no... This was her room, this was her bed... And this was, for lack of a better term, her lover, lying on top of her, eyes full of cold focus, staring half at her, and half through her, hands around her throat. 

Peggy had no way of knowing how long Dottie had been choking her, but her grip was iron, and if Peggy didn't want this evening to end any worse than this, she had to get Dottie off of her, and quickly. She braced a foot against the wall, flipped them both off of the bed, and they landed on the floor with a loud thud. _Bloody Nora,_ she thought as it struck the floor, _not that elbow again._

They landed on their sides, facing each other, their hips bearing the brunt of the impact. Peggy grabbed Dottie’s wrists, pulled her hands off of her neck and gasped for air. “Dottie!” she coughed, staring into her face, searching for signs of the woman who had fallen asleep in her arms a short time ago. She held onto Dottie’s wrists, struggling to keep those strong hands from wrapping themselves around her throat again. She didn’t want to use her training to subdue her, but she was running out of options. 

Dottie’s face suddenly changed; as if she were somehow waking up, and Peggy realized that in fact, that was indeed what was happening. Dottie's struggling slowed, then stopped; her eyes dropped to Peggy’s grip around her wrists, then Peggy’s face, then down to Peggy’s neck, where, judging from how sore the skin felt, Peggy imagined there were some red marks. 

“Peggy?” 

“Dottie, what the bloody hell just happened?” Peggy demanded breathlessly, her heart still banging away inside her ribs. 

A look of bewilderment, confusion, and then slow realization and horror dawned across Dottie’s face as she realized what had happened. “Peggy… are you alright? Did I hurt you?” 

Peggy coughed a little. “Well, I’ve felt better.” She looked at Dottie’s face, ashamed and filled with urgency. “If I let go of your wrists, you won’t try to kill me again, will you?” 

Dottie shook her head. “No, Peggy. I promise.” Peggy hesitated, then released Dottie’s wrists. 

They sat up, Peggy remaining tense and ready to defend herself, Dottie looking miserable and filled with panic. They sat together on the rug, a few seconds ticking by as they tried to unwind what to do next. Finally, Peggy spoke. “So, I suppose this is why you've been afraid to stay the night?” 

Dottie looked away, seeming as if she very much wanted to be somewhere else. She nodded once. 

Peggy looked at her for a moment, her chest still tight and her lungs still feeling grateful for the air in them. “You realize this puts a slight damper on this new stage of our relationship.”

Dottie nodded again. She grabbed Peggy’s hand. “Peggy, I don’t want to hurt you... I was just... Having a nightmare." 

"Must have been quite a nightmare. What was it?" Peggy was trying to keep it from sounding like an interrogation and not entirely succeeding.

"Peggy, I can’t talk about it…” 

“Well, you’re going to have to try,” Peggy answered firmly. “If I take my life in my hands every time I go to bed with you, I had bloody well better have a good reason.” 

Dottie was silent for a long moment. Peggy could see her wrestling internally with something. When Dottie finally spoke, her voice was neither the voice of the gee-whiz farm girl who liked lollipops and the circus, nor that of the slightly unhinged, apparently homicidal young lady who had just had her hands wrapped around her throat. "Peggy, it's about someone... something... from a long time ago, that's just ... Hard to explain." 

She sounded intelligent, adult.... but also sad, and a little lost. 

Peggy changed her approach. "Alright, Dottie," she said patiently, "who are you? I mean, who are you really? Let's start there." 

Dottie looked briefly at her, and then said, "Well, I don't know, Peg. I'm an orphan. I don't know who my parents were. I know my name probably wasn't Dorothy when I was born, but I've never been able to get my records, so I don't know what it was." She stopped, gathering herself before continuing on. 

"Who gave you the name Dorothy?" Peggy asked, now curious. She'd always pictured Dottie in some strict but close-knit Midwestern church family with a mum who knitted her mittens and a dad who got up early to feed the... well, whatever animals one kept on a farm in Iowa. Cows? 

"The people who ran the foster home."

"So all of this business about you growing up on a farm...?" 

"Oh, well that's all true," Dottie assured her. "The home was on a hundred acres of farmland. I was one of a dozen kids." 

"I see." 

"Anyhow," Dottie went on, "it... It wasn't a good place." She looked up at Peggy again for a moment, eyes baleful, seeming to hope this would be enough. 

"Dottie, you just tried to strangle me in my sleep. Please elaborate." At this point, Peggy realized they were both still naked. She wrapped the sheet around herself, then fished Dottie's pink dressing gown up off of the floor, and wrapped it around her. 

Dottie pulled the dressing gown closed over her shoulders, not bothering to don it properly. "Peggy, please try to understand, there's a lot I don't remember..." 

Peggy nodded, realizing that she was digging into something she might or might not be able to handle. 

"... But... They had... Well, they had very specific ideas about what they wanted us to be."

"You mean, who," Peggy corrected her. "Who they wanted you to be."

"I know what I said, Peggy," Dottie answered, becoming uncomfortable. "They... They wanted us to be great at everything, and we got whipped if we weren't. I mean, everything. Our schoolwork, our sports, the way we kept our rooms, our clothes, the way we spoke. Everything." 

Peggy frowned. This felt like the beginning of the story, not the end. 

"I have a few scars," Dottie went on. "It's part of why I didn't want to be naked with you. I didn't want you to see them." She lowered the dressing gown off of her shoulders a bit, and turned around partway, enough for Peggy to see a few long, thin scars on Dottie's back. Peggy winced. They were pale and faint, but she recognized them for what they were. When Dottie had said she'd been whipped, she apparently meant with an actual whip.

While Dottie was putting herself back together, Peggy said softly, "But I've always known you had scars. I just didn't know they were quite so literal." 

Dottie sighed, and for a long moment, she said nothing. "I only have a few," she finally said with a hollow kind of pride. "I was the best." 

_The best_. The phrase vibrated in Peggy's bones. That was why Dottie needed to be told that she was the best. 

Dottie went on. "They... They had certain ideas about... about sex, too... That we weren't supposed to want it, we weren't supposed to like it..." 

Sounded like any proper American puritans. 

"... So they... did things to us, to make sure that we wouldn't." 

Peggy's stomach turned. 

"The man... He was a doctor... He was so well-respected..." 

"Your foster father?" Peggy clarified. 

"Don't call him that," Dottie said sharply. 

"Sorry." 

"From the time I was twelve..." She broke off. "Peggy, I don't remember everything he did to me, and I don't want to. But he... He took something from me. I didn't want sex, I didn't even want to feel anything even close to wanting it. I didn't..." 

Dottie seemed oddly detached considering she was talking about something this awful. Peggy wanted to lean forward and gather Dottie up in her arms, but wasn't sure it was a good idea just now. She touched Dottie's hand. "I'm not your first, am I?" She hoped not. She'd have done things differently if she'd suspected that were the case. 

Dottie shook her head. "Not my first ever. There have been a few men. I never felt anything. I didn't want them." She looked at Peggy now, serious and defeated. "But I was honest when we were in Gloria's room the other night. I've never been with any girl but you." Her eyes seemed broken, her face looked drained. "I've never felt anything with anyone but you." 

Peggy was struggling to keep her bearings in the flood of emotions this revelation was unleashing; rage, relief, regret, heartache. She wished she had known from the beginning what she'd been up against. She wished she'd somehow taken more care with her. She felt the sudden weight of responsibility, of being the first person to make Dottie want to transcend her scars. She felt righteous rage, the desire to go and inflict well-deserved torment on the people who would do this to anyone, much less to this woman she had grown to care for. "Dottie... Can I... Can I hold you right now? Would that be alright?" 

Dottie surprised her by lying down on the floor and laying her head in Peggy's lap. "Yeah, Peggy, that'd be alright." 

Peggy, startled, began gently stroking Dottie's hair. "Do you need to cry, darling? It's alright if you do." 

Dottie's smile was so pained, it wrenched Peggy's gut. "Oh, thanks, but I can't, Peg. I never could." 

_Christ_ , Peggy thought. _I don't weep often, but when I do, God is it a necessary evil._  

She nestled her cheek against Peggy's thigh. "There's more, you know. I had one sister..."  Her voice was weary. 

"Had?" 

"Yeah." Her fingers gripped Peggy's. "They made me hurt her. But ... Peggy, I can't talk about this anymore now, ok?" 

"Of course. I just wish I'd known." This woman, the one lying with her head in Peggy's lap, was the one she'd seen from time to time; the woman who danced Stravinsky's Rite of Spring flawlessly, the woman who thoughtfully deconstructed the acrobats' routine at the circus, the woman who was so natural and graceful on the ice, who looked like an angel with snowflakes caught on her hair... This was that woman, and Peggy's heart was breaking for her.

 ***** 

Dottie lay with her cheek resting on Peggy's leg for a long while, breathing her scent, feeling her touch, holding onto her. Technically, nothing she'd just told Peggy was a lie. She didn't know who her parents were or what her birth name was. The doctor who ran the Red Room was indeed a well-known physician. She and the other girls had been beaten and punished countless different ways in order to get their accents, their manners, their fighting skills, all their ways, perfect in every measure. And her sex had been taken at the moment it started to blossom, and turned into as much of a weapon as the rest of her. None of that was a lie. 

But of course, it wasn't the entire truth either. She had found herself in something like a human relationship, with an extraordinary human being, and it forced her perspective. Perceiving from a place that was dangerously close to normalcy and humanity, her time in the Red Room wasn't training; it was torture. It hadn't made her superhuman, it had just stripped out so much that she was capable of almost anything. Even now, with her head resting in Peggy's lap, she couldn't be sure that Peggy was safe with her. 

_I should leave_ , she thought. _If they tell me to kill her, I'm going to do what they say, because what am I, except that?_  

But she coveted Peggy. She craved her. She wanted to be with her, be inside her, see with her eyes. She wanted to drown herself in her lips, her voice, her weight, her perfume, her taste. It felt like weakness. She wanted to explain. 

“I was dreaming about my sister, I think,” she said quietly, after a long silence. The truth was, she didn’t know who the girl was (again her mind reached for a name, _Anya?_ ) but they were all sisters in the Red Room, all being raised up into perfect monsters. Dottie felt a sense that the girl was her favorite, that she preferred her company to the others. She had a flash of sparring with her; the girl was quick on her feet, hard to hold onto, and her eyes… they were dark and had entirely too much mirth in them for the place they were in. 

Peggy continued stroking her hair, wordlessly urging her to keep talking. 

“He wanted me to hurt her again. I didn’t want to. I wanted to make him stop.” 

She remembered sparring one day in the chilly, sunlit courtyard; she’d gotten her in a hold and this time, she wasn’t going to escape. And she was told to break her friend’s neck. She didn’t want to. But the lesson had to be learned, that anyone could be a target, and she did as she was told. 

But not in the dream. It was already fading, it was already slipping back into the blackness of her skull the way her dreams always did, but she remembered that in her dream, she felt herself release her hold and turn to the doctor and try to strangle the life out of him. “I should have told him no, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. But in the dream, I could. I did.” 

“Do you dream of this often?” Peggy’s voice murmured gently in her ear. 

“I don’t know,” Dottie answered, matter-of-factly. “Most of the time, I don’t remember my dreams at all.” She stared at the floorboards, the dust bunnies under the bed (she’d have been whipped if she’d had any of those). “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Peggy. You were just … in the way of my bad dreams.” 

She felt Peggy’s lips on her sweaty temple, because she knew there were no words for times like this.

 “I should go back to my own bed,” she sighed, dejected, exhausted.  Dottie Underwood had spent days clinging to the sides of cliffs in Kazakhstan, had run the equivalent of three consecutive marathons on a mission in Argentina, but she felt more wiped out now than she had after any of those things. 

“Ssh,” Peggy soothed her, “not yet.” 

Peggy's lips brushed softly against hers. A moment later, Dottie found herself rolling onto her back, on the floor, pulling Peggy down on top of her. She’d been here once before, but she hadn’t been ready for it then. This time, she gave herself over to slow, sweet kisses; this time, instead of Peggy pinning her wrists to the floor, she was clasping Peggy’s hands, their fingers tangled together, and she was whispering, “Don’t let go, Peggy. Don’t let go of me.” Her body ached for Peggy's, and wanted to rewrite that moment. 

It was quick this time, but still tender, careful; they came almost together, in a matter of a few minutes, moving against each other on the floor. Peggy was as gentle as soft rain, and Dottie didn’t need to hurt to like the way it felt. Peggy didn’t let her leave, in the end; they crawled back into Peggy’s bed and Dottie fell asleep with her head on Peggy's chest. 

Peggy sat awake next to her for the rest of the night.


	9. Dorogaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy closes in. Dottie remembers things.

The virtue of her dancer’s build, Dottie knew, was that she looked good in virtually everything.  Not that she cared about being beautiful; she was deadly, and that was better.  But being beautiful made being deadly so much easier.  That strapless black dress she’d worn when she’d seduced Howard Stark was a particular winner.

Today’s wardrobe choice was far more subtle, but even her most modest church-mouse outfits couldn’t entirely conceal her assets: long legs, firm ass, slender waist, and breasts that, while not enormous, nevertheless insisted upon themselves, even from underneath a cotton blouse and a fuzzy cardigan sweater buttoned at the top.  Ivchenko’s priorities existed miles from women and sex, but Dottie was aware enough to notice that even he couldn’t help an appreciative glance or two during this, their first face to face meeting since he’d arrived in the States.  She pushed the car door open and he clambered inside.

“You seem tired,” he observed as he buckled in.  It was strange to hear his heavily accented English.  She almost preferred for him to switch to Russian.

“I don’t sleep much,” she replied coolly.  “It’s better that way.”

Ivchenko smiled that smile that said he knew much more than he was saying.  “Of course.  And when you do sleep, do you dream, _dorogaya_?” _My dear, he calls me,_ she thought with bitter amusement.

Dottie shrugged.  “I’m sure I do, _nachal'nik_ , but I don’t remember.”  A lie, but what did it matter.  They made her the best liar, what did they expect? _Yes, boss, of course, boss, I tell you what you need to hear, boss._

Ivchenko nodded approvingly.  “Good.  Dreams will distract you.”

Dottie’s eyebrow barely twitched.  Distract me, she thought.   _How laughable.  You and the other doctor, and that woman, you torched everything inside me so I would be impervious to distraction._

“Still, _dorogaya_ , I’m feeling that you are... distracted by something.  Are you feeling well?”  he pressed.

“Never better,” she answered, her voice flat and diffident.  Ivchenko could dig into people with weaker minds, but not hers, she assured herself.  She was an agent of the Red Room.  Her head was a stone fortress.  Ivchenko would not be able to crack her defenses, would not be able to see her body’s hunger for Peggy Carter.  

She held Peggy in a special place in her mind, carefully not thinking about her, protecting the memory of her kisses with a wall of forgetting, of studiously ignoring her; keeping the sense memories of her desire obscured, but not so obscured that their presence could be forgotten and then be allowed to leak into her thoughts.  Ivchenko would not find Peggy there.  

Dottie needed him not to.  She knew enough to know that just the fact of her desire alone would be enough to make Peggy too great a liability in Ivchenko's mind.  Dottie knew she'd be made to kill her, or worse, Peggy's life would taken out of her hands completely and someone else would be sent in to do it.  

He nodded, not saying anything for a moment.  “You will observe me, when I am in the SSR offices today, yes?  And in all the days to follow, unless and until I instruct you otherwise.”

“Of course.”

“Good,” he said.  He smiled at her, staring at her face as she drove, her eyes pointed forward, not looking at him.  “You must be very conscientious when you are observing me at the SSR offices, yes?”

“Don't insult me," she retorted evenly, "I'm always conscientious."

Ivchenko smiled again, fiddling absently with his ring.  "Yes, but this will be the most important job you have ever done.  You must pay close attention at all times.  You must focus."

**  
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*********

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Peggy and Jarvis had had an eventful afternoon.  She still hadn't forgiven him for lying to her, so watching all of Howard Stark’s ex-girlfriends slap him in the face was giving her a bit more schaudenfreude than it should, and she was enjoying it rather ostentatiously, as if it were a street hot dog dripping with ketchup and stewed red onions.  It was the only joy to be had that day, as it turned out, since the trail went cold after discovering the alias of the woman who had almost certainly been the Russian spy who had been responsible for the theft of Howard’s inventions.

They stood together in the automat, fishing for change for the machine as they discussed their findings.  There had to be a way, the woman had to have left a trail.  

"Well," Jarvis observed, "that last apartment was almost entirely bare; there had to have been movers or someone to empty the place, someone who saw the woman and could at least give a description, anything at all?"

Peggy frowned.  "Worth checking, I suppose.  Although if you saw the place in Russia... Well, let's just say I doubt she's very concerned with comfort."

"What do you mean, Miss Carter?"

"I mean, I don't know that there was much furniture in there to begin with."

Jarvis sighed.  "I see."

Frustratingly, as Peggy had discovered that day, based on the array of women she and Jarvis had visited, Howard Stark didn't really even have a "type"; they were all quite different from each other, although Peggy was forced to admit that his taste was nothing short of impeccable.  "It's a shame your employer isn't more discriminating," she grumbled.  "He doesn't even seem to have a type."

"On the contrary, he most assuredly does have a type."

Peggy gave a derisive snort. "Female?"

Jarvis pulled his wax paper cup of coffee from the dispenser and began to empty several packets of sugar into it.  "I don't care for these little paper packets," he complained, "and I reject entirely the suggestion that one of these represents a proper serving of sugar." He dramatically tossed the wrappers aside. "In any case, Miss Carter, while he is not as discriminating as might be convenient for us, I assure you, he does indeed have a preference."

Peggy pulled her own coffee from the dispenser. "And what is that preference?"

"Same as yours," he answered lightly. "Statuesque blondes with noticeable endowments."

Peggy shot him a look.

He gave her a satisfied smirk. "It was rather obvious last time I saw you here that the young lady you were dining with-"

"Dining's a bit grandiose to describe what goes on here," she interrupted.

"-the young lady you were with, was clearly the reason you'd seemed a bit tired the day before."

Peggy suddenly noticed that the room had become empty and quiet.  Two men in suits approached them where they stood.  SSR agents.

This was not going to end well.  Not for the agents, anyway.  

"We'll talk about her later.  Or better still, not at all." She smiled brightly at the agents as they approached her, exclaiming, "Twelve cents for a cup of coffee, can you believe it?"

**  
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********

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She felt the cold biting into her arms as she surged forward into the bimoreal forest.  She was underdressed for the weather and time of day, but this was by design, of course.  She was expected to survive the night in the evergreen forests of Siberia.  She was expected to build a fire, kill a beast, shelter herself, and do so outfitted with only a hunting knife that was, at best, the size of her forearm.  Her forearm, pale and freckled, which looked so grievously small to her eyes at this moment.

But of course she would succeed.  She would succeed where some of the other girls had failed. Because she was the best.

The cold earth crunched under her feet; dead leaves, pine needles, all frozen brittle, gave way under her pounding steps.  Her deep, hard breaths rolled forth from her lips in thick, white clouds.  She had to keep moving, until she could find something to kill; if she kept moving, she'd stay warm.  

They were behind her; the doctor, the woman, both bundled up in heavy leather coats lined with fur.  They were there to observe.  She could feel herself simultaneously keeping aware of them, and yet carefully not thinking about them.  What mattered was her survival; there was little purpose to her fretting over their opinions of how she accomplished that.  If she survived, she succeeded, so what was the point of worrying about their opinion on her choice of approach, her style of skinning a beast, her method of building a shelter?  She kept them in her periphery, carefully not-considering them.

Winds came south, cold through the cotton of her shirt.  Prioritize: skin, fire, shelter.  She would succeed where others had failed.  Lighting a fire would likely drive away any beast whose skin would offer sufficient warmth.  Shelter in these woods would consist of pine boughs, and leaves, and would protect from wind and snow, perhaps, but not the cold.  Skin had to come first.  And quickly.  Grey sky slowly turning purple, dropping temperatures, night approaching… she had very little time.

She shinnied up a nearby larch tree, up through its thick boughs, its rough needles brushing her face and pricking her arms through the thin cotton sleeves of her shirt.  Its smell was that of evergreen, pungent for being stowed in its branches.  The stone in her pocket weighed heavy against her thigh as she moved up the rugged trunk.

_(How can this be?  I have no memories like this, how can I be remembering this? she wondered.)_

High up enough, she scanned the area to find her prey.  She laid eyes on it almost immediately; a large, male grey wolf.  It would be perfect; double-layered coat, one soft, one dense.  A pelt like that and she wouldn’t even need a fire.  

The trees were dense in this part of the forest; she’d be able to approach from above, strike it with the stone, then drop down and cut its throat with her hunting knife.  Easy.  She knew that the trainers would prefer her to track the prey along the ground, but why follow trails in the dirt when she could simply lay eyes on it?  This was why, she knew, she was the best.

She was tall for her age, but slender, and her training had made her strong.  Not all of the girls had started out in the gymnastics program and then moved to the ballet, as she had; she had the advantage of being strong and skilled enough to leap from tree to tree, swing from bough to bough, and yet she was light enough that the branches wouldn't break under her weight.  She moved through the larch trees' fragrant growth toward where the wolf waited.  He would be hers.  She unsheathed her knife, the blade like a fierce, flashing smile in the gathering dark.  It was the only smile she had for him, she thought, positioning herself above him.

She saw him looking around, furtive and uneasy.   _You smell me,_ she thought _.  It's alright, wolf, I smell you, too.  We will be finished soon._

( _Those are my hands.  That is my knife.  I know them both.  But how can this be?_ )

She dropped from the branches.

**  
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*********

Peggy stood in the alley behind the Automat, face to face with Jack Thompson.  "There's nowhere left to run, Marge," he was saying.

She hated it when he insisted upon calling her that.  "Thompson, I really don't want to do this..." she began.

"I'm sure you don't, Marge," he answered, "But you know how this is going to have to go."

Peggy hauled off and decked him across the face, knocking him cold and watching him crumple onto the pavement. "Sorry, Thompson," she muttered under her breath, although it wasn't entirely true.  She was preparing to run when another agent, Carson, came running into the alley, gun drawn.

Peggy shook her head.  She barely knew him.  He'd only been at the agency for about two weeks.  She was really going to resent it if she got brought down by a rookie who looked vaguely like Peter Lorre.  

"Hold it right there, Carter!" he shouted, as if he'd been waiting for a chance to say that to someone for a long while.

"Carson, we really don't have time for your theatrics," she started.

He inched closer.  "I'm not stupid like Thompson.  Just do what I say, or I'll plug you from right here and say you resisted arrest."

Peggy opened her mouth with some sarcasm at the ready, but before she could get the words out, she was stopped by the sharp bang of a gun firing, once.

Not Carson's gun, though.  He was hit, sinking to the pavement and clutching his chest.  Blood was seeping out from between his fingers.

Peggy spun around.  She looked around, then up.  She barely caught a glimpse of a human shape up on top of the building next to the Automat.  There was her "friend," disappearing past the roof’s horizon; the shooter who had clipped Carson.

She didn't get a good look.  But it had been, without a doubt, a woman’s shape.

**  
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*******

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She fell from the trees, onto the back of the wolf.  Her arms wound themselves around its neck and her thighs gripped its flanks.  She was surprised at the feel of it; the thick fur, the size of it, the power in its frame.  It was bigger than a man if he were on all fours. This was not like wrestling one of her sisters in the courtyard.  She would need the knife in her hand; the wolf’s neck was not made of such delicate bones, as Anya's had been.

She plunged the knife into the wolf’s neck and was moving to draw the blade across its throat, but it rolled on its side and she was thrown to the cold ground.  She felt her body strike it and kept moving, snapping up into a crouch, her hands pressed against the cold ground.  She was face to face with the wolf now, staring into its dark eyes and clutching the knife in one of her hands.  Exactly where she hadn’t wanted to be; in striking distance of the teeth and claws of a wounded animal.

Her pulse was quicker, but not racing.  She knew how to crush panic and fear into a tiny, dense little fist in her chest, and there it sat, as she and the wolf regarded each other in this frozen moment.  Snowflakes came, tiny and silent, gently and cautiously descending around them.  Behind her, in that place, that carefully-constructed place in her mind, she remained aware of the presence of the doctor and his woman, and the presence of large shotguns in their hands.  Also, in that place, she was aware that the shotguns weren’t there to protect her from the wolf; they were only there to protect themselves if she failed her objective.  

The wolf's ears stood up suddenly, and it skittered back a few steps.  She wasn't fool enough to think she was the reason though.  She could feel it behind her, emerging from the trees, something that worried the wolf far more than she, far more than a couple of other humans with shotguns.

It was a tiger.

It looked at her, it's golden eyes calm.  And why wouldn't it be calm? It had nothing to fear from a thirteen year old girl with a knife.  Her sisters were afraid of her, because she was the best of them, and sometimes she suspected the doctor and his trainers were, too.  She smelled it on them, as if she were truly the predator they had trained her to be.  It had been a long time since she'd been looked in the eye without so much as a trace of that.

It was twice the size of the wolf, yet its footsteps fell silent against the frosted-over ground.  She admired it; its power, its grace, its serenity.  She knew she was supposed to be a black widow spider, but her gut ached to be the tiger. It was beautiful.  

It was probably going to kill her.

The wolf issued a loud, throaty bark at the tiger.  The tiger only rumbled quietly; not even a growl, much less a roar.  She tensed, clutching her knife.  It swept her aside with its massive paw, dove at the wolf, and sank its teeth into the grey fur of his neck.  She sprang backward and leapt up into the lower branches of a larch tree, wondering what she was going to do now that the tiger had taken her quarry, hoping it didn't decide to turn its attention to her.  Tigers were one of those beasts like bears; it didn't give a fuck if you were up a tree.  If it wanted you, you were done.

But then it stopped moving, and looked up at her.  It had torn the wolf open and was standing over its still-twitching carcass as it lay steaming in the cold evening.  Then it took the wolf's neck in its great jaws, and dragged it to the foot of the tree where she stood clinging among the branches a few feet off of the ground.  It looked up at her, expectant.  It backed away, lowered its chin near to the cold forest floor.  She had a dim memory of living with a cat, a small tabby, who presented a mouse to her in much the same way.

( _But how could this be? How could any of it be?_ )

After a moment's hesitation, she slipped down from the tree and landed on the ground with a soft thud.  The tiger nudged the wolf's body toward her as if saying, _Go on, little one, I've already eaten.  This one is yours._

She furtively moved toward the wolf, took her knife, and began to skin it.  The tiger watched her with curiosity.  She donned the wolf's pelt and still, the tiger sat watching her.  She glanced around quickly, knowing she needed to get a fire going.  The tiger reached his massive paw out and nudged the wolf's body toward her again.   _Stupid baby predator, you're supposed to eat it._

She realized what the tiger was doing.  "I only want his fur," she heard herself saying to it.  "I have to build a fire now." She slipped up into the trees again, finding some branches on the leaf-bearing trees that seemed dry enough to use to start the fire.  Branches from the pines were not ideal; they smoked and spat too much, and the smell of the burning pine sap was overwhelming in her nostrils, but she was going to need to use some.  Still, the fire was a fire, and she sat beside it, wrapped in the wolf's pelt, breathing for a few moments, while she and the tiger continued to look silently at each other.  She cut a hunk of meat from the wolf's carcass, cooked it in the fire, and ate it.  The tiger seemed satisfied with this.

She rose to look for branches to make a shelter, as the snow was still soundless, but was coming down faster now.  But the tiger rose with her, placed a great paw on her chest, and pushed her back to the ground.  Her pulse hitched; why would it go through all that trouble just to eat her now? But the tiger instead curled its massive body around hers, sheltering her with its fur and blood and bone.  After a moment of sitting stiffly, its great, hot tongue lapped over the top of her head once, then its nose nudged her into a prone position.  Its animal musk drowned out the smell of the burning pine sap.  She relaxed into its fur, and fell into the sleep that the black widows did; asleep but not, dreaming but untouched by it.

In the morning, the doctor and his woman came to extricate her.  She climbed from under the tiger's embrace and looked at them, calm and clear, having rested as well she could recall having done.  Their shotguns slowly levelled, pointing at her.  She froze.  

"Stand aside, _dorogaya_ ," the doctor commanded with a small, chilly smile.

She did as she was told.  She did not look at the tiger as they emptied shell after shell into it.  Behind her eyes, she felt a hot, dry ache, where tears might form in weaker, more sentimental creatures than herself.  She stood, cold and distant, until they were done, and they loaded her into a truck, and transported her back to the Red Room.

( _How was this memory returning after all this time?_ )

She had survived, and therefore passed the test. But she had allowed herself to depend on the good disposition of another creature, and, it was suspected, may have developed an attachment to it.  She was whipped for the first time in years.

**  
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********

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Peggy knew that returning to the Griffith carried a risk that might turn out to be too high.  But she had no choice.  She couldn't leave the last remaining piece of Steve lodged in the wall of her room for the SSR to find.  

After retrieving the vial, she slipped through Angie's window... But first she was treated to her friend giving a command performance to get rid of Thompson and the rest of the agents swarming the place.

"I knew you didn't work for the phone company," Angie exclaimed after they'd left.

Peggy felt guilty lying to her friend, and even worse lying to Dottie, especially after what had felt like a breakthrough the night before.  She had to get out of here, straighten this situation out, and then come clean with the women in her life.  "Thanks again, Angie.  I'll owe you several cases of schnapps for this, I promise."

She tiptoed out into the hall and made her way toward the stairs, keeping one ear on the sounds of the SSR agents to stay clear of them.  She almost walked smack into Dottie.  She looked at her, glad to see her but simultaneously wishing she hadn't run into her.  She didn't have time to explain things now.

"Peggy!" Dottie gasped. "Gosh, are you a sight for sore eyes!"

Her focus was still mostly on the agents crawling the building.  It occurred to her in passing that Dottie seemed to be back to doing her turnip truck routine again.  But she didn't have time to wonder why.  "Dottie... I'm glad to see you, but... I've really got to go..."

Dottie looked disappointed.  Peggy felt fleeting worry that Dottie would think she was avoiding her.  "You mean you're not going to be around for dinner?"

Peggy shook her head.  "I'll explain everything later," she promised, anxious to keep moving as she heard the Thompson team getting further away.  

"Alright, Peggy," she heard Dottie say.  "I sure hope you're alright." Then Dottie pulled her in for a hug.  Peggy slid her arms around Dottie's waist, intending to briefly return the hug and slip away, but then Dottie's lips found hers and were pressing hard against hers, the way they used kiss in the beginning, deep and more than a little rough.   _Here, Dottie? Now??_ she thought.

And then she felt it.  That dizzy, sick feeling.  The room swam, and she pulled back to see Dottie looking at her with that chilling, focused look, the one she'd had their first time in bed, the one she'd had when she was choking her in her sleep.  Suddenly, she understood what was happening to her. "You... You're wearing my brand," she sighed groggily, grabbing Dottie's shoulder in an effort to stay on her feet.  Dottie has helped herself to Peggy's knockout lipstick, it seemed.

Her hand dropped to Dottie's wrist, the one that had been bandaged last night.  No bandage now.  With nausea and dread, she pushed Dottie's sleeve up, and saw them: scars from a lifetime of sleeping in handcuffs.

 _Oh God,_ she thought _.  What have I done?_

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	10. Through the Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, knowing that Dottie is a Russian spy doesn't make her behavior any less puzzling to Peggy.

Dottie was trapped. At least, inside her own head. 

The memory of the tiger was now fresh, a raw wound that was internally hemorrhaging shame, pain, and grief into her blood. She felt the horror of listening to those shots being fired into it, reverberating in the hollow of her chest. She was trapped in that feeling; that sense of terrible weakness, terrible failure, wanting to make it right. But whose idea of right? 

Damnit. She knew what this was now. Ivchenko. He had roused this memory to weaken her, to pry his way into her head and ensure her compliance in taking out her target. 

Her target. Peggy. 

It was like an out of body experience, watching herself crouched on the rooftop. But, no ...That wasn't quite it. She was trapped in her own head, peering out through her own eyes as if they were windows… She watched her hands caress the butt and barrel of the sniper rifle, she watched her crosshairs find Peggy in the alley behind the Automat. She watched Peggy knock out that agent, a man twice her size, with one punch. So she is that strong, she remembered thinking. 

The thought thrilled her somehow. But she was detached from herself. _Put the gun down,_ she kept telling herself. It was strange how that old memory of the tiger had been so immersive and intense, she had felt every hair on her head … yet in her own body, she could hardly feel the wind, hear the traffic, or bend her own digits and limbs to her commands. She watched herself take aim, stared at the crosshairs on the back of Peggy's head, her mind scrambling desperately. She watched another agent come running into the alley, gun drawn. 

She was filled with urgency, remembering her target’s chestnut hair, the smell of it, the thickness of it in her hands... Her target. Peggy. 

 _Put your gun down_ , she said to herself again. She couldn't believe she was trying to argue with herself, yet there she stood. She watched her hands hesitate with the rifle, but then reassert their aim. This was the terrible feeling of being strapped in the passenger seat while someone else was driving the car off a cliff, and being unable to do anything about it. 

But she could nudge the wheel. She had to be able to nudge the wheel. _Left, left, left, left, just a little, just a little, left, left, left, left_ , she insisted to herself. She only needed to change her aim just a little and the agent with his gun trained on Peggy would become the target. Nobody said she couldn’t shoot any other SSR agents. She didn’t care if she did. _You’re not going to let him take your target away, are you?_ she demanded of herself. _You are the best, you’re not going to let him steal your mission from you, are you?_

The crosshairs nudged slightly to the left. She watched the agent go down, bleeding. She saw Peggy Carter turning around to see where the shot had come from. She knew that there were other agents behind the one she’d just shot. The Red Room agent she was knew that she had blown this chance. Good. She fled the scene while she still could. 

The Red Room agent knew Agent Carter was keeping something of great importance in her room at the Griffith, though she didn’t know what it was. Great enough that she was going to go back there for it, even with the SSR apparently looking for her. The Red Room agent knew that that would be her opportunity. 

She went back to the Griffith, broke into Agent Carter’s apartment, and nicked that lipstick she’d been lusting after. She applied it carefully, and waited. Being beautiful really did make being deadly so much easier. 

Dottie continued watching herself. She watched herself apply the lipstick, and tried to force her hand this way or that. Sometimes she succeeded and had to wipe a little excess off. If she was going to end up killing Peggy, it couldn’t be like this. It couldn’t. She had to have more control of her own mind. She didn’t want to kill Peggy, but if it came to that, it couldn’t be just one more repeat of her great failure; becoming weak, needing someone or something, and then being forced to choke her grief out of existence when the terrible deed had to be done. 

She had become attached to her target. She wanted her. She had become addicted to the way she felt when she was with her; the simple, subtle pleasure of listening to her accent as she spoke about books she’d read, the warmth in her stomach when the target -- _Peggy_ , she reminded herself again -- gave her those smoky eyes over the dinner table downstairs. She reminded her body of what it felt like to be entwined in her, what her lips felt like, what she tasted like, what it felt like to lay in her arms, the bliss of sex that she was never supposed to feel. 

 _Remember that, remember how she felt inside you?_ she demanded of the Red Room agent. She wanted control again, and was hitting as hard as she could in order to get it. 

 _Let your hair down,_ she told the Red Room agent. _She prefers it loose, she’ll be more likely to kiss you_. She watched in the mirror as her hands came up to her bound-up hair, and undid most of the pins, letting her gold curls spill down her shoulders. 

Success. Of a sort. 

It was still a strange and unpleasant feeling to be stuck banging on the window of her own mind, struggling to make herself do even the smallest things. There was no way around it. She was going to ambush Peggy Carter, she was going to kiss her with these poisoned lips, and she was probably going to kill her. But maybe she could trip herself up, just enough, just enough to … to what? To not kill her. At least, not now, not under such conditions. Dottie had assassinated her share of targets in similarly stealthy ways plenty of times, but Peggy Carter deserved better than that, she reasoned. She deserved to fight for her own life, at least. 

Again, Dottie found herself oddly thrilled at the idea of finally feeling Peggy not holding back, feeling her hit as hard as Dottie knew she could. She wanted to feel that, at least once. 

And then she felt more than heard Peggy's presence in the hall. 

When she found herself putting her arms around Peggy in the hallway, and then kissing her, it was rough and deep, like it had been for most of their … their… well, she hadn’t assigned it a name, what they were doing, but “relationship” worked, she supposed. 

The taste of Peggy’s mouth seemed to surprise her; for a moment, she was in her own body again, and she was kissing Peggy and smelling her perfume and feeling her lips. For a moment, she wasn’t on the other side of the glass. 

Everything about Peggy felt good to Dottie. Even when she saw Peggy starting to go down, even when she couldn’t contain the look of triumph watching Peggy figure out, too late, what was happening to her (it still felt good to know that she was the best), she couldn’t escape noticing how good Peggy felt. Her soft lips had felt good. Even her warm hand on Dottie’s arm felt good. She felt herself instinctively reach out with her other hand to support Peggy, to help her stay on her feet, just like when they went ice skating what seemed like ages ago. Dottie held onto her, dwelling for a few extra seconds in being close to her, wanting to draw the moment out as long as she could. She felt herself leaning forward, wanting to taste her lips again, but then the Red Room agent took control again, and decided that there was no more time for indulging Dottie’s impulses for mawkish tenderness. Dottie felt her hands let go of Peggy, watched her slide down to the floor, unconscious. She felt the switch-knife in her hand, cold steel. 

But Dottie was pleased. She had managed to move the needle. Those few seconds she’d bought with her lingering, precious few, were enough. Enough delay that the SSR agents came back for something or other, and found her, feigning shock, standing over Peggy’s prone form, pleading with them to help her. 

Dottie hated to see her taken away by the agents, but also knew Peggy was safer with them than she was with her right now. 

It didn’t matter, though. Dottie was better than the agents. She knew Peggy was better than them, too. They were not going to be a concern.

 

 ***** 

 

Peggy awoke, numb and handcuffed to a table in an interrogation room in the SSR offices. It was slowly coming back to her, what had happened. Dottie… her wrist… Jarvis’s remark that Howard preferred tall, shapely blondes… all her stories … the split personality… it was her. Of course it was. Agent Margaret Carter had been sexually and, yes, emotionally involved with a Russian spy. 

It was so obvious now, she wanted to pistol whip herself. 

She had always been uneasy with Dottie, always felt that there was something wrong. The stories of her childhood horrors in the foster home seemed to explain all of that, though. Peggy had accepted them because she wanted to, because she was coming to depend on their strange relationship for a kind of stability, because the sex (though a bit odd) was good and she wanted to believe it was rooted in something more, because she wanted to think she could fix someone who was broken. 

The idea that she had felt so fiercely protective of Dottie after hearing those stories now made her laugh bitterly. Dottie hardly needed her protection. But she was angry more with herself than with Dottie. The signs had always been there, even from the beginning; she was just thinking with the wrong part of herself. 

Goddamnit, she was just as bad as Howard Stark. 

A part of her resisted this diagnosis; the last night they'd spent together had felt like... _Like lovemaking_ , she thought, before banishing it from her mind. She had no choice to assume that all of it was a lie. 

But she had other problems at the moment than bruised pride and a heavy heart. She had to take those things, crush them into something tiny enough to fit in her purse, and deal with the fact that the SSR was obsessed with trying to nail her as a traitor when there was in fact an actual Russian spy running around, planning to do God only knew what. She met their relentless interrogations with fierceness and wit, until Thompson, Dooley and Souza were starting to look worn down. Despite the bleakness of her situation, it gave her some pride to see that they weren’t as good as she was, that they couldn’t crack her. _I’m white-hot, you bloody children, do your worst._

It was going nowhere fast, until Jarvis entered, with his well-meaning but ill-conceived attempt to spring her with a forged confession from Howard. She recalled asking him the very first night they met, “You’re new to espionage, aren’t you?” He was, and this proved it. Well, she thought ruefully, at least they chained them to a different table in a different room than the one she’d been sitting in for the last several hours. 

After a long silence, he asked, “So, what’s our plan, now?” 

She sighed. “Sit here and wait for the world to end?” 

He looked skeptically at her. “That doesn’t sound like you, Miss Carter.” 

“Mister Jarvis, I have had a very, very bad day.”

“I’m locked up too, you know,” he replied primly. “And I was slapped several times in the face today by angry women.”

“Yes, but on the bright side, you didn’t discover your wife was a Russian spy.” 

“I didn’t realize that was up for discussion.” Jarvis paused and looked at her quizzically. “You found our spy, didn’t you?” 

Peggy miserably laid her head on the table for a moment, then picked it back up again. “Yes.” 

“In the time between leaving me at the Automat and getting picked up by the SSR?” 

“Yes.” 

“And…?” 

“And as it turns out, I’ve been sleeping with her for the better part of six weeks.” 

“I beg your pardon, Miss Carter?” 

Peggy sighed, her misery compounding with each admission. “The blonde. The one you saw me with in the Automat. My neighbor.” 

“That one? The one who looks like she grew up shearing sheep in Indiana?” 

Peggy rolled her eyes. “Yes. Iowa, not Indiana.” She paused, biting her lip. “Though I suppose it’s a meaningless detail.” 

“Are you absolutely certain?” He seemed incredulous. 

“Yes. It's meaningless.  She's not from Iowa.” 

Jarvis was impressed. “But are you certain it’s her?”

“Yes. It’s definitely her. I saw the scars on her wrists from the handcuffs.” 

Jarvis was just about clutching his imaginary pearls. “Incredible.” 

“Why is it so hard to believe, Mister Jarvis? You were ready to put out a sting operation on Ginger Rogers.” 

Jarvis smirked, so subtly that no-one but Peggy would be likely to even notice it. “It’s just,” he remarked, “it’s rather surprising that you would allow something that... significant to escape your notice.” 

“I know,” Peggy grumbled, “believe me, I know.”

 “You must be new to espionage,” he wisecracked. 

She shot him a dirty look. “You’re not nearly as clever as you think you are.” 

“Nor are you, apparently.” His ribbing was clearly not meant to be hurtful, but it still chafed. 

“Mister Jarvis, we are chained together in a very small room in which there is little for me to do apart from inflict misery on you, which is what I shall do if you don’t give it an abrupt and immediate rest. This is a _very... short ...chain._ ” 

Jarvis nodded once. “Of course.” He gave a sympathetic half-smile. “You can’t be entirely blamed, I suppose. She is quite beautiful.” 

 _Quite beautiful. Terribly graceful. Intense. A bloody liar._ Those were the only truths she knew for sure about the girl she’d been calling Dottie Underwood for all of this time. The rest? Who knew? Her tortured childhood, her fondness for the flavors of innocence -- sweets, ice skating and the circus-- the entire arc of their intimacy from rough and competitive, to strange but pleasant, to the gentle hunger of the other night… Who knew how much of it was real and how much was her cover? Her nightmares… 

Why, Peggy wondered, was she still feeling ill at ease? Why was she still feeling like Dottie being a spy was not the whole story any more than Dottie being a naive waif from the sticks was the whole story? _She had her hands around my throat, she could have killed me..._  

"Mister Jarvis, do you imagine it's possible to love someone and want to kill them, simultaneously?"

"Ask my mother. That sounds like a fair description of her marriage to my father." 

Peggy smirked. “How would you feel about putting this table through that window?” 

Jarvis looked happier than he had in hours. “I’d feel splendid about it.” 

They got up, each gripped a corner, and prepared to heave the table at the two-way mirror. 

But then a chaos began pounding and thudding in the hallway outside the door. She listened for a moment. Several sets of footsteps, those men’s hard shoes against the tile, stampeding past the door. More thuds, shouts. 

“Well, that can’t be good,” she sighed, resigned to the fact that they were still chained to the table. 

Silence. 

Jarvis and Peggy looked at each other, looked at the reflective surface of the two-way mirror, looked again at the locked door. They heard a couple of what sounded convincingly like gunshots. 

Jarvis took a hesitant breath. “Do you suppose we should–?” 

Peggy raised her free hand to hush him. She watched the door. The knob turned, and the door swung open. 

On the other side of it, in a black pantsuit with creases ironed sharp enough to shave with, blonde curls bound up, brandishing an odd-looking weapon that looked for all the world like an automatic pistol, stood Dottie. Her eyes were cool, focused, with that slightly vacant smile playing around her cherry-red lips. Peggy and Jarvis froze. 

 

******* 

 

It had been too easy for Dottie to get into the SSR offices. It was always easy to get into these kind of environments, the ones dripping with so much testosterone that they were literally mentally and physically incapable of perceiving a beautiful woman as a threat. Only Peggy knew who and what she really was, and Dottie knew that she’d be locked up in an interrogation room.

 She scanned Peggy’s face, which was dark with rage, took quick note of the Englishman’s extremely nervous bearing, and her smile widened. “It sure is nice to see you, Peg,” she said softly. 

She meant it. It was nice to see her. It was gratifying to see that Peggy was still alive, and seemed relatively unharmed. She knew that the Red Room agent in her was still trying to remain in charge, and Dottie was wrestling to beat back Ivchenko’s programming.   He would be upset that she was releasing Peggy.

Dottie was ready to watch New York burn.  But not Peggy.  Not yet.  

“I wish I could say the same, Dottie,” Peggy retorted. 

Dottie’s smile remained frozen in place. Yes, she supposed it was to be expected that Peggy might be feeling a little betrayed at the moment. “Peggy, you should be nicer to me right now,” she scolded. 

 _This still isn’t right_ , she thought. _It’s still not right._

“I’m not about to beg for my life, if that’s what you mean.” 

That fierceness. Dottie felt the warmth rise in the pit of her stomach. Trapped in what could easily be the last moments of her life, and Peggy Carter was still defiant, still… incandescent. She looked at the two of them, chained to the table, gripping it, clearly planning to smash the two-way mirror with it. “You two realize that won’t do you any good. You’re still chained to that table.” 

The Englishman glanced at Peggy. “We _are_ still chained to this table.” 

Dottie smiled at them. “Not for long.” She pointed the pistol toward them. The Englishman struggled to keep a stiff upper lip, and Peggy stared at her with blazing eyes. “Don’t worry, this will only take a second. Hold still, please.” 

 

****** 

 

Peggy watched as Dottie squeezed once and a number of shots unloaded… into the chain that bound Peggy and Jarvis to each other and the table. It shattered and suddenly, they were free. She gave Dottie a confused, surprised look. 

“Oh, Peggy, come on. You didn’t think I was going to kill you, did you?” 

“You’ve tried before.” This was getting stranger.

 “That wasn’t me trying,” Dottie responded easily. 

Peggy snorted. “Your hands were around my throat, you’ll have to excuse my confusion.” 

Jarvis looked back and forth between them, baffled at the direction of the conversation. 

“I’m as good as you are, Peggy. Maybe better.” She came into the room, drew closer. Peggy’s fists were balling up at her sides. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead by now.” 

Peggy’s chest felt hot. “Dottie–” 

Dottie, still smiling, slid her body into her personal space. “Peggy, we both have jobs to do. And I’ve been dying to see you in action.” 

Peggy hauled off and decked Dottie once across the face. “Again, can’t say the same about you,” she shot back, watching Dottie snap backwards and then straighten up, and look her square in the face, still smiling, even with a little bit of blood on her lip. 

“Guess you owed me that one. Next one’s coming back at you.” Dottie licked her lip and locked eyes with Peggy. Her fingers flitted lightly over Peggy’s cheek. “Tag,” she murmured, her eyes lit with a strange fondness. “You’re it, Peg.” 

She darted out the door and disappeared down the hall, leaping gracefully over the prone bodies of about five agents on her way. 

Peggy brushed past Jarvis and ran to the door in time to hear her over her shoulder,“Sorry about the mess, Peggy!” as she ran. She leapt out the open window at the end of the hallway. 

"Did she just-?" Jarvis began. 

"Yes," Peggy cut him off with chagrin. 

"But aren't we on the-" 

"Eleventh floor," Peggy supplied helpfully. 

"And she isn't-?" 

"Dead? I doubt it." 

“I see. Well,” Jarvis remarked, straightening his tie and brushing imaginary dust off of his shoulders, “that was … unexpected.” 

Peggy shook her head. “A pretzel in a packet of crisps is unexpected. That… was bloody strange.” She peered down the hallway as more agents came pouring down it. “Let’s go. As Dottie so correctly pointed out, we’ve a job to do.”


	11. The Twisting Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chase continues, but the reasons why become unclear.

By the time Peggy and Jarvis made their way to Chief Dooley's office, the glowing, volatile electrical vest locked to his body made it abundantly clear that Peggy had been right all along, and had been telling the truth about everything.  Ivchenko was finally accepted as the villain he was (Thompson confessed that he'd been uneasy all along with the trust that the chief had been placing in "that Russian headshrinker"), and finally, at last, thanks to the trail of dead and unconscious agents she'd left upstairs, finding Dottie Underwood was an agency priority.

Peggy carefully neglected to mention the extent of her personal relationship with the Russian spy.  It wasn't relevant, she decided.  She only supplied that Dottie had been a neighbor of hers at Griffith House with whom she'd socialized with on occasion.

She remained baffled at Dottie's choice though, to break into the lion's den, so to speak, seemingly with the express purpose of a) setting Peggy loose, and b) essentially daring Peggy to chase her.

_Tag, you're it._

Peggy was filled once again with that impending sense of something bearing down on her that wasn't sure she'd be able to stop.  But, strangely enough, it rather seemed that Dottie wanted her to try.

And so, for the second time in the last hour, Peggy watched someone hurl themselves out of a window in the SSR offices.  

 

*****

 

Dottie wheeled the baby carriage up the sidewalk to the front door of the theater; the baby carriage was bearing a canister of death and violence, assuming the stuff still worked as effectively as it had at Finnau.  But of course, that was why she was testing it out here first.  

She wondered how long it would take Peggy to catch up with her.  Dottie had seen Howard Stark's private car in midtown; with him in town, she expected they'd figure out pretty quickly which items were missing from the SSR offices and what was planned for them.

She caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the theater's front doors.  She was struck by what a pretty young mother she made, well-dressed and pushing such a quietly slumbering newborn in this lovely carriage.  It was a very nice carriage. It rode suspended on springs on very large, rubber wheels, which, the lady at the shop had explained, would give her baby a very smooth ride, even on those bumpy cobblestones in Greenwich Village.  It was, strictly speaking, a much nicer carriage than was necessary for wheeling a canister of rage-inducing poisoned gas into a movie house.   _Nothing but the best for my baby_ , she thought wryly.  

While waiting in the ticket line, her eyes lit on a little blonde girl, standing in front of the movie posters in the lobby, pointing at them and holding her mother's hand.  Those soft curls, the still-babyish lilt to her speech.... They were familiar.

It was Molly, the little girl from the circus.

 _Too bad I don't believe in fate,_ she mused.

 

******

 

Peggy, Thompson and Souza stood in the lobby, surveying the carnage as body after body was wheeled out on stretchers.  "And you didn't see who barred the door?" Thompson pressed the manager.

The manager shook his head.  "No.  But, that lady and her kid want to talk to you guys," he said, pointing to a woman in her early thirties with a little blonde girl who anxiously clung to her mother's hand, sucking on a lollipop.

Peggy's face drained of its color.  What were the odds?

"Why's that?" she asked.

The manager shrugged.  "The mom thinks she saw something, I guess."

The agents walked over to where the mother and child stood.  "Hello, Molly," Peggy said to the little girl with as much warmth as she could muster.  She looked up at the mother, scrambling to recall her name from the night they'd met at the circus.  "Good evening, Irene."

Souza and Thompson looked mildly surprised.

"What's the phone company doing looking into a thing like this?" Irene asked, looking more than a little rattled.

Peggy gave her a tight little smile.  "It's a long story.  The manager said you saw something?"

Molly piped up before her mother could answer.  "The ballerina from the circus was here," she told Peggy.

Souza and Thompson exchanged confused looks.

"I'll explain later," Peggy promised them quickly.  She turned back to Molly.  "Did she speak to you at all, Molly?"

Molly nodded.  "She came over with her baby and she told me that if I wanted to be a ballerina, that I had to run away."

Irene still looked angry and shaken.  "Molly went bolting out the front door and then the woman, your friend, she pointed out the front door and told me I'd better run after her." She pulled her daughter tighter against her side.  "For someone with such short little legs, my Molly sure runs fast.  She was halfway around the block before I caught up with her."  

Thompson hunkered down and asked Molly, "Sweetie, did she tell you why she would say something like that?"

Molly shook her head.

"So how come you listened to her?"

"Because she helped her-"  She pointed to Peggy. "-rescue us from the tiger."

Souza and Thompson looked even more confused.  "I'll explain after," Peggy said again.  She turned back to Irene.  "She’s not my friend. Just an acquaintance,” she said briskly.  “What happened after you caught Molly?"

Irene shuddered.  "We walked back here, came inside and bought tickets.  We found the door barred.  I could hear... awful sounds coming from inside, you know, that at first I thought were the movie and I thought, gosh, this doesn't sound like an appropriate movie for Molly.  But when the manager came and opened the door..." She went another shade of pale.  "Well I didn't see much, but I saw enough."

"You said she had a baby?" Peggy asked Molly.

Molly nodded.  "She had a big black baby carriage."

"Did you see the baby?"

Molly shook her head.

Peggy looked at Souza.  "Well, it appears, gentlemen, that we need to find Mr. Stark’s ...'baby'."  She briefly wondered, given Howard’s track record, how many times that sentence (or one very much like it) had been uttered in the last decade or so.

As they trudged toward the screening room, where the bulk of the horror lay, Souza fixed Peggy a look.  “So … you and a ballerina rescued a little girl from a tiger at the circus?”

Peggy deadpanned,  “Of course, Daniel.  Isn’t that how you spend your Saturday nights?”

But despite the sharp crack of her wit, Peggy remained puzzled.  Dottie had been in Peggy's bed a few dozen times, had wrapped her hands around Peggy's throat, had had that opportunity to cut her down behind the Automat, but shot Carson instead, which couldn't have been a mistake.  She'd drugged her, enabling her capture by the SSR, but then infiltrated the place in order to release her.  And now... She'd committed what could only be described as an atrocity, and yet she had seen fit to remove Molly and her mother from the scene before she did it.  Why?

Peggy thought again about the Red Room, those little handcuffs on the beds.  The brainwashing films they’d seen.  It occurred to her that whatever those little girls had been subjected to, Dottie had been subjected to as well.   What if, somewhere beneath the layers of torture and abuse that passed for training and conditioning, what if some fragments of Dottie’s humanity were still resisting, even now?  The thought presented Peggy with further painful complications. 

_I don't know who my parents were. I know my name probably wasn't Dorothy when I was born, but I've never been able to get my records, so I don't know what it was._

Not necessarily a stretch, now that Peggy thought about it.

_They wanted us to be great at everything, and we got whipped if we weren't._

_I don't remember everything he did to me, and I don't want to._

Maybe, Peggy pondered, everything Dottie had said to her the other night about the terrors of her youth really was the truth, or at least as much of it as Dottie was capable of telling under the circumstances.  Maybe, just maybe, everything Dottie had said to her was an accurate description of what the Red Room did to its girls, and Peggy had accidentally managed to circumvent those carefully calculated torments by the simple act of making her body and bed a safe place for Dottie to be.  Maybe Dottie didn't know what to do with that.  Peggy was inching uneasily toward the conclusion that whatever whiplash and hurt she was feeling over having the rug pulled out from under her, Dottie might be wrangling with a somewhat larger fish.

After their brief stay at the theater, Peggy stopped off at the SSR offices, dug up a few of the files that she’d brought back from the Red Room, and set them aside for later perusal.  There had to be a real person with a real story at the bottom of all of this.  There had to be something that could illuminate the twisting path of Dottie's motivations.

 

****

 

Grabbing Howard Stark had been too easy, really.  You could get him to follow a pretty woman just about anywhere.  He hadn't remembered their evening together some months ago (the night she stole his inventions), despite having sent her a diamond bracelet.  He was currently passed out in a chair in the middle of his airplane hangar.  He was handsome, Dottie supposed, in a sleazy, mustachioed sort of way, but she'd enjoyed punching him in the face repeatedly far more than she'd enjoyed sleeping with him.  She hadn't felt anything then, and she wondered idly, looking at his head slumped forward on his chest, whether Peggy had ever had a liking for that sort of charm.  She found herself hoping not.

The strange, disembodied feeling of Ivchenko's influence had passed; she was in control of herself, fully.  When she held her shotgun, she felt it in her hands, aware of its weight. When she heaved Howard Stark into that chair, she smelled the stink of his playboy cologne.  When she punched Howard until he was unconscious (which didn't take much), she felt the impact in her fists and relished it.

And when Peggy showed up (and Dottie knew she would, she was counting on it), she would feel all of the blows they two would exchange.  She would hear her labored breath and feel Peggy's grip on her arms, maybe.  She would feel her.  And Peggy always felt good.

It was the real reason she'd released Peggy... She wanted to ensure that the agent would pursue her. As Ivchenko's plan unfolded, the balance of safety was shifting.  By tonight, with Howard Stark piloting a plane full of poisoned gas toward Manhattan, Peggy would be safer with her, here at the airfield, than she would in the city.  They were well away from the bloodbath that was going to engulf Times Square.  What a rotten way to go, torn apart by a violent mob, she mused.  Better to die in hand to hand combat with someone who cared enough to look you in the eye and say your name while they were killing you.

The trail was clear enough.  She knew Peggy would find her way here.  What happened after that... almost didn't matter.

 


	12. A Job to Do

Peggy moved slowly down the hall, gripping shotgun, her quiet steps following the squawk of the radio, and the dull, soothing tones of Ivchenko’s voice, repeating coordinates to Howard as he sped his plane toward the city.  The bark of Howard’s voice came back through the static and she could hear that tone in it, that lost tone she'd heard in Chief Dooley's voice, that confirmed he was still very much under Ivchenko’s influence.  

She peered around the doorway and looked into the room.  It looked less like air traffic control and more like someone’s marginally comfortable living room.  She could see Dottie’s back as she stood in front of Ivchenko, listening to his conversation with Howard.

“Focus, Howard,” she could hear him, assuring him with gentle tones, “you’re doing very well.”

Peggy paused for a moment, looking at Dottie; she cut a fine figure in that very fashionable black suit, with her hair up and, naturally, her impeccable posture.  She had the kind of posture that the girls Peggy attended prep school with would have sold their souls to achieve.  With it, Peggy knew, came grace, strength, and athleticism.  She couldn’t let herself get too close.   _But then,_ she thought ruefully, _I suppose I already have._

Peggy pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside, shotgun leveled at the two Russians. “Hands in the air.”

She watched as they both slowly raised their hands.  Peggy could see Dottie’s hand stealing toward her collar.  Peggy knew odds were good that someone as well-trained as Dottie probably had a pistol in there.  

“Uh uh,” she interrupted sharply. “Lose the gun.”

Dottie sighed irritably, but after receiving a go-ahead nod from Ivchenko, she slowly pulled it out and dropped it beside her on the floor.  

She turned her attention back to Ivchenko. “Back away from the radio, if you wouldn’t mind, Doctor,” she said, leaning on his title as heavily as she could.  She wondered for the first time, as she stood here with a weapon pointed at him, whether he was the doctor in question.  The doctor that Dottie had referred to when talking about her abuse and torture as a child.  All of that could have been a lie, she reminded herself.  But then again, she suspected that the girls of the Red Room did get put through paces that were more torture than training.  And it only made sense; while Dottie was clearly executing the plan (and a number of people along with it), Ivchenko was the obvious engineer.  She thought of the bodies torn and gouged littering the movie theater; Dottie may have been the one to make it happen, but it was his plan, his brainchild.  

_I don’t remember everything he did to me, and I don’t want to._

Even now, even though there was no room for it, she felt a surge of anger at him, and it was something completely distinct from her blazing urgency to stop him from guiding Howard Stark and a plane full of poisoned gas into Manhattan.  It was the same surge of hot, righteous anger that she’d felt when she’d listened to Dottie talk about how she’d been treated during her childhood.  It was absurd, she knew; Dottie didn’t need or want to be protected … But how could she not feel rage toward a person like this, who would do horrible things to god knew how many little girls just like Dottie?  Dottie might not be her lover anymore (if she ever was), but it didn’t change the fact that Ivchenko was the real monster, here.

 

 

*****

 

Dottie slowly turned around.  Peggy wasn’t close enough to strike, but she was close enough for Dottie to smell that lovely French perfume that she was so fond of, that smell that used to linger on Dottie's skin and sheets after Peggy had been rolling around on them.  It was a shame that she wouldn’t get to have that again.  

“Peggy, it’s so good to see you.”   It was true.  She was glad that Peggy had found her.  She didn’t want Peggy to die in a way that tore up her pretty face.  She knew that Peggy intended to put a stop to their plans, and naturally that wouldn’t do, but after all their muted, almost-pretend struggling during sex, she found she was dying of anticipation.   

_Peggy, we both have jobs to do. And I’ve been dying to see you in action._

Dottie was almost giddy.  First things first though, that shotgun had to go.

“Dottie,” Peggy began, “I don’t want to hurt you–”

Dottie’s leg flashed out and kicked Peggy once in the shoulder, swinging her body to one side and causing the gun to fire one of its shells into the ceiling, leaving a fist-sized hole.  She pulled the shotgun from Peggy’s hands to toss it aside, and aimed another kick to her stomach, sending her to the floor for a half-moment.  Dottie smiled proudly to herself.  Peggy hadn’t been expecting that.  

And then, graceful acrobat that she was, she removed herself from Peggy’s reach – two backflips – one, two.  And she was halfway across the room.

She was pleasantly surprised at how quickly Peggy sprang to her feet and charged at her.  She didn’t fight artfully, she just came in with brute force, like a hurricane or a stampede.  It was rather beautiful, in its way.  Peggy’s fists had the full force of those strong shoulders and arms behind them, and Dottie wanted to feel one of those punches, but she wanted to make Peggy work for it.  She didn’t want to give away the farm.  

The first punch, similar in its form to the one that Peggy delivered to her in the SSR offices, Dottie blocked.  The second, she ducked and felt the breeze of Peggy’s fist whizzing past her head.  That would have stung a bit if it had made contact.

On the third punch, Dottie ducked, grabbed Peggy’s arm, and used the momentum of her punch to throw her to the floor, where she landed with a loud thud, a grunt, and enough force to go smashing through a small end table and then go rolling smack into the wall.  It was a harsher echo of the way she’d sometimes throw Peggy down on the bed before having her rough way with her.   _She’s strong,_ Dottie thought, _but she needs to be quicker or else we aren’t going to have a very good time._

 

***

 

Peggy looked up at Dottie, her bones smarting from the impact of hitting the floor.  She recognized the cold, focused look in Dottie’s eyes: _Can you be my girl, Peggy? Take what I give you, and do what I say, can you do that?_

But they’d never played quite this rough.  Dottie’s look was diamond-hard, gleeful, twisted.  

 _This is who she really is,_ Peggy reminded herself, _this is what she was made for.  She was always meant to kill you._

Dottie’s breath was shallow and quick as she panted, “Isn’t this fun??”  

“A riot,”  Peggy retorted, her own breath more laboured than it had been a few moments ago.  “Better than the circus, wouldn’t you say?”  She scrambled to her feet.

“Well,” Dottie replied, pulling out a switchblade from her suit jacket, “let’s not over-sell it, huh?”  

“I suppose,” Peggy snapped back, watching the blade pop out of the handle.  “I mean, we haven’t got any tigers for you to shoot at the moment, have we?”

 

*****

 

Dottie felt something in her gut momentarily squeeze in on itself when Peggy said this.  She watched as Peggy grabbed a long white scarf off the back of the couch, wound it around her wrists, and pulled a short length of it taut between her hands.  Interesting.  Creative.  And again, beautiful, in its way.  “ _You’re_ my tiger,” she whispered, more to herself than to Peggy, as she moved forward.

She didn’t want to kill Peggy, but if she didn’t do it, they would send someone else to do it later.  That would not be acceptable.  No-one else had the right.

And if she didn’t succeed in killing Peggy now, then Peggy would kill her, and Peggy was maybe only one who had the right, because it would mean something to her.  Suddenly Dottie was struck by how intimate a thing it would be, and wondered whether Peggy fully appreciated that.

_This is everything, darling... I can only take what you give me._

It was too much to absorb.  

So instead, Dottie attacked, thrusting at Peggy with her blade.  She was aiming for the throat, the chest… but not the face.  She liked Peggy’s face.  Peggy leapt back to avoid her swings and jabs.  She’d adjusted to Dottie’s style and was moving faster now.   

“I can’t let you sabotage my mission, Peggy,” Dottie panted in between her stabs and slashes, none of which were making contact.  

“And I can’t let your mission succeed,” Peggy answered breathlessly, darting out of the way.  “We call this an impasse.”

 

*****

 

Peggy  jumped forward and quickly wound the length of fabric around Dottie’s knife arm, yanking Dottie in towards her, and catapulting a knee into her stomach.  She saw Dottie’s head snap back, and so Peggy yanked her in again, Dottie’s arm extended forward and her face vulnerable.  Peggy swung an elbow into Dottie’s head, knocked her back, and then wound the length of fabric around her throat.  Her heart raced as she pulled Dottie in close to her, tightening the fabric and doing her best to use Dottie’s struggling as leverage to keep the scarf tight.  Dottie threw her head back, and it pressed into Peggy’s shoulder as they wrestled, half-hunched, in the middle of the room.

Dottie’s eyes were open, staring into Peggy’s, and for a second, they lost their cold focus.  “Peggy…” she choked.  For a second, they were just staring, searching Peggy’s, looking for what, Peggy didn’t know.  

In spite of herself, Peggy felt her heart ache for a moment.  She knew that look. _Peggy… I… I want to give you everything... but I can’t._

She saw the color draining from Dottie’s face, felt the force of Dottie’s body struggling in her arms.  It was a strange feeling, the reverse of most of their bedroom games in which Peggy pretended to struggle against the force of Dottie's strength, and Dottie pretended to be not quite as strong as she really was.  Sweat broke on both of their foreheads now, wrestling against each other's most powerful selves, and Peggy found herself less and less willing to see it end like this.  "Dottie..." she groaned, still struggling, still pulling tightly at the scarf, looking at those clear blue eyes that suddenly seemed so desolate.

"Peggy... I'm glad it's you..." Dottie choked.

Peggy thought she understood what Dottie meant; that she'd rather be brought down by Peggy than anyone else.  

The fierceness of Dottie's fight was waning.  Peggy cursed under her breath.  She heard Ivchenko, back on the radio, continuing to steer Howard.  "Just stay down, Dottie," she ordered, letting the scarf slip through her hands, and letting Dottie slide to the floor.  "Just stay down, I don't want to hurt you."

 

*****

 

Dottie lay catching her breath for a few seconds.  She heard Peggy knock Ivchenko out of the chair and seize the microphone, shouting at Howard Stark, "Howard! Howard, it's not real!"

She considered Peggy's words, _Just stay down, I don't want to hurt you._

Agent Carter would always opt for sentimentality, she thought wearily.  Peggy should have killed her when she had the chance.  Why did she insist on making things difficult?

The circulation rushed back into her fingers and toes, the warmth flooded back into her cheeks, and she scrambled to her feet again.  She unraveled the scarf from around her throat, tossed it to the floor, and rushed at Peggy.  With still-shaky hands, she yanked Peggy off of the mic and hurled her into the wall again.

She turned to Ivchenko and motioned for him to go.  Stark was on course by now and needed no more shepherding; this fight was between her and Peggy, and needed no spectators.  He gathered himself up, slightly worse for wear, and exited the room as quickly as his banged-up legs would take him.

While Peggy was still reeling from the impact of being thrown against the wall, Dottie strode over to the desk in the corner of the room and pulled a baseball bat off of a display rack above it.  Signed by Babe Ruth, she noted as she tested its weight.   _Must be nice to be Howard Stark._

She brandished it as she walked toward Peggy.  It felt good in her hands.  Not as good as Peggy, but good.

Peggy was looking up at her from the floor, her dark eyes never leaving Dottie’s.  She smoldered, Dottie thought, even now.  She was alert, eyes full of that heat that Dottie envied and craved.  “Dottie,” she was saying, “you’re better than this.”

“Oh, Peggy,” Dottie sighed, moving closer, bat in her hands, “of course I am.  I’m the best.  You know that.”

Peggy shook her head.  “Dottie," she persisted, looking up at her, "you're not a monster. You don't have to be... And I don't think you want to be."

“You don’t know what I am,” Dottie answered coldly, pausing for a moment.  “And you don’t know what I want.”   _Oh, but she does,_ came the unwelcome voice in her head.

Peggy wouldn’t quit.  “I know you didn’t want to hurt Molly and Irene.  Why?”

Dottie moved slowly toward Peggy.  She didn’t have the answer to that question.  She didn’t care if everyone in that theater tore themselves to bits, but she didn’t want Molly in there when it happened.  Just like she didn’t want Peggy in Manhattan when Howard Stark dropped his payload.  “Stop talking, Peggy, it’ll make this so much easier.”

But Peggy was not so easily deterred.  “Why did you send Molly out of that theater, Dottie?”  she pressed again.

Dottie refused to admit that she was falling victim to sentiment again.  “Peggy, you’re asking too many questions.”  She adjusted her grip on the bat.

“Why, Dottie?  Why did you break into the SSR to release me?  Why did you leave the trail for me to follow?  There’s a part of you that doesn’t want to do this. I know you better than you'd like, Dottie."

Dottie felt the muscles in her arms coiling, readying themselves to strike at Peggy as she moved towards her, brandishing the bat.  “I”m not you, Peggy.  I don’t share your weakness for childish sentimentality.”

“I know there’s more to you!” Peggy insisted.  “I can see it.”

Dottie raised the bat, holding it over her shoulder, ready to swing.  She needed Peggy to stop talking.  Peggy was asking questions she couldn’t answer.  I have a job to do and I’m going to do it.  But she felt her cold focus melting away into an unfocused, incoherent rage.  This wasn’t good.  

“I used to be so jealous of girls like you…” she began as she advanced on Peggy.  “I would have given anything to look like you, walk like you, talk like you…”

Peggy was getting back up on her feet now, tossing her hair back over her shoulder and looking ready to go another round.

“But now… I can be whatever I want!”

She stepped in quickly, and took two unsuccessful swings at Peggy, who ducked and jumped backward to avoid her blows.  On the third swing, Peggy managed to get her hands around the bat and pull it toward her.  They wrangled for a moment, each trying in a desperate tug of war to wrest the bat from the other’s hands.  “That’s right,” Peggy grunted as they struggled.  “You can be whatever you want!  I’m not going to stand by and let you choose this!”

Dottie felt the force of Peggy’s foot slam into her shoulder; it hurt, in a hot, deep, dull kind of way that was almost something Dottie liked, but it wasn’t enough to knock her down. Dottie tore the bat out of Peggy’s hands and hit a square blow right in the middle of Peggy’s back.  Peggy went down, for the first time seeming like she was in real pain.  Dottie was startled for a moment; this wasn’t a look she’d seen on Peggy before.  

 

****

 

Peggy’s back was aching, her muscles starting to grumble from bearing this much.  But she couldn’t do this any other way.  There was no getting on that radio without getting past Dottie, and there was no getting past Dottie without either killing her, or finally reaching her… or whatever was left of her.

“You don’t get to decide that, Peggy,”  Dottie replied, and her voice was as cold as before, but something in her look was clouded.  “I don’t belong to you.”

“RIght,” Peggy answered, pulling herself to her feet, but not backing away.  She could see something cracking, traces of that other Dottie that she’d seen in those rare moments when she felt as though they were truly connecting.  “You belong to you, and nobody else.”  

Peggy saw a look of recognition flick across Dottie’s features, remembering the last time Peggy had said that to her; gently assuring her that letting herself feel good didn’t rob her of who she was.

Peggy gripped the back of the couch.  “You decide.”

“Oh, I have a great idea,” Dottie said, raising the bat again.  Peggy knew she had another blow coming.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Dottie.  And you don’t want to hurt me,”  Peggy insisted again, not convinced that Dottie was hearing her.

Dottie struck Peggy in the back again, forcing a pained grunt out of her body.  Peggy hung onto the back of the couch, collapsing over it in agony.  Two blows from a proper Lousiville slugger were two too many.  But she wanted to reach Dottie, so much more than she wanted to kill her.

“Maybe I’ll be an SSR agent next time!  What do you think of that?”  

Peggy groaned in pain and straightened up, bracing for whatever came next.  Dottie looked ready to go in for the kill.  If she took a head blow, Peggy knew she was finished.  Time was running out.  Incalculable numbers of lives were at stake and Peggy, no matter how much she wanted to save Dottie from herself, had to take those lives in her hand.

Dottie shook her head, disappointed.  “I thought you’d be better.”

They spent another lingering moment looking at each other, knowing that there was a reckoning coming that neither of them could stop, then Dottie swung again.  But this time Peggy ducked.  Dottie missed, smashing the window immediately next to her.   Peggy, bones aching and muscles screaming, jumped over the back of the couch, ripped the bat out of Dottie’s hands, threw it out the broken window, and grabbed Dottie by the shoulders.

They stared at each other for a half a breath, and then, desperately, foolishly, Peggy pulled Dottie in hard, and kissed her.  Her heart banged inside her chest so vigorously, it felt like she was being punched.  Involuntarily, her eyes closed, and she felt Dottie pressing into her.  They kissed, hot and hungry, rough and sweet like they used to do.  She felt Dottie’s hands come up and take her face between them, and Peggy didn’t stop the kiss, but she grabbed Dottie’s wrists.  She didn’t want Dottie’s hands someplace that would make her vulnerable, and her face between Dottie’s hands could easily become her neck snapping in those same hands.  So with her adrenaline racing, her heart pounding, holding onto Dottie’s wrists, she pressed in and kept kissing her, kept feeling Dottie’s mouth opening and responding to hers, kept hoping that Dottie returning her kiss meant that she was connecting, that she was getting through.

“Dottie,” she whispered, “Dottie, don’t be the monster.  Just be with me, please.”  

“Peggy,” Dottie mumbled back between kisses, “Peggy, don’t let go of me.

Time stopped for a few seconds, and it felt like their bodies understood each other; in that painfully brief respite, nothing else mattered.  But time, Peggy knew, was always hurrying forward, relentless and without pity.  They pulled back and looked at each other.  Peggy's eyes felt hot, though she was only barely aware of it.  Dottie’s looked glassy, as if they had welled up with tears.  They both knew that there was no good ending to this.  

_Do you need to cry, darling? It's alright if you do...._

"Look what you made me do, Peggy," she whispered, blinking back tears.

_Oh, thanks, but I can't, Peg. I never could..._

“Sorry, darling,” Peggy whispered.  There it was.  She had drawn tears from the scorched earth.  This was either very, very good, or very, very bad.

Dottie gave her a pained smile.  “No, I'm sorry, Peg.”  She slipped her hands out of Peggy’s grip, backing slowly toward the shattered window.

Peggy stood frozen for a moment, watching Dottie slowly moving away from her.  "Dottie.... What are you doing?"  

"Peg, there's no fixing this, you know that," Dottie said, her face looking more and more resolved and strangely calm with each step.

Peggy took a few quick steps forward and grabbed onto Dottie’s lapels.  “Dottie, there’s got to be another way.”

Dottie looked sad, but resigned, calm.  “Sorry, Peg,” she whispered again.  She planted a foot in Peggy’s chest and sent her sailing backwards, toppling over the desk chair and sprawling out on  the floor.  And then she sprang backwards, crashing out through what remained what of the broken window.

Peggy ran to the window and looked out.  She saw Dottie, sprawled out on the wing of the plane that had been parked beneath the window.  Her heart caved in.  

But there was no time for grief now.  The squawk and static of the radio reminded her of that.  She had a job to do.

 


	13. A Dramatic Exit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how the story ends, for now at least.

Peggy was struck sometimes at the way certain moments in her life seemed to repeat themselves.  She was never quite sure whether she was being tormented, or being given the opportunity to do it better, or if they were just echoes of one another, as devoid of meaning as the echoes of music down a stairwell.

For the second time in her life, she was biting back tears and pleading over the radio with someone not to crash his plane.  When it had been Steve, it had been because she wanted to save his life, and with Howard it was because she wanted to save everyone else's.  

For the second time in her life, she was forced to keep a stiff upper lip as she dealt with the loss of a lover who meant more to her than she wanted to admit, without having the opportunity to really say goodbye.  Steve had chosen death to save everyone in New York, while Dottie seemed to have chosen it to save her.

The parallels were striking, as were the differences.  But she could hardly say whether they meant anything in particular.

After they succeeded in getting Howard to shake off Ivchenko's programming, and capturing Ivchenko himself, Sousa called out to her from inside the hangar: "Hey Peggy, didn't you say the woman jumped out that window and landed face down on the wing of this plane?"

"I did," she confirmed, striding back in with her heart suddenly in her throat. "Why?"

"Well, I guess they make 'em tougher in Russia," Sousa replied, peering up at the wing of the plane and then down at the cement floor.

He pointed to a trail of blood spatters that disappeared out a side door of the hangar. "Looks like your gal pal made a getaway while you were talking Stark out of the sky."

Peggy bit her lip.  Dottie was alive.  There was no way of knowing what her mental state was, or whether she'd see her again.  There was no telling the nature of her injuries, or whether she'd blame them on Peggy and come looking for her.  Grief packed its bags, and an odd pair of roommates named relief and dread moved in.  

After a moment, she processed that Sousa had referred to Dottie as her "gal pal," which made her wrinkle her nose in disgust.  "Daniel, she was a Russian spy dispatched to observe and then kill me.  Can we perhaps find some other term?"

"You went to the circus with her."

"And you've gone drinking with Thompson once or twice, I imagine.  Shall I refer to him as your wingman?"

Sousa grimaced.  On a good day, he found Thompson barely tolerable, and she knew it.  "Point taken."

She looked around once more, anxious suddenly to get the hell out, and said briskly, "Alright, let's get a cleanup crew in here and put out a manhunt on Miss Underwood."

 

****

 

Peggy kept her composure through the ensuing debrief, and could barely begin to give a damn about Thompson taking credit for her work when the Feds came in.  She had other, heavier things to think about.

Thompson did somewhat redeem himself in the end by seeing to it that Peggy got a promotion, a better desk, and by putting out the "memo" that Peggy Carter wasn't to be bothered anymore with things like filing (although just to get her goat, he'd occasionally ask her to get him coffee).

On her own time, she opened up the Red Room files she'd set aside.  They seemed fairly unremarkable at first; some notes on what looked like drug trials for who knew what, and a stack of strangely slim dossiers on a number of girls.  They contained names, photographs, birthplace, and little else in the way of individual details.  The lion's share of what they contained, actually, was the record of the various medical "treatments" the girls received.  Peggy grew more and more heartsick as she perused and realized how many girls did not survive their training.  She couldn't bear to wade through more than a few of these files in a given day.

Out of gratitude, Howard moved Peggy and her neighbor, Angie, into one of his smaller penthouses.  He called it payment for the disruption he'd caused in their living situations as well as Angie's place of employment.  They settled into a comfortable rhythm of sharing meals and not arguing too much about what records to put on the record player, and Peggy came clean with Angie about her real occupation, as she'd promised herself she would.  She even, after a brief hesitation, told Angie about her relationship with Dottie.  Angie didn't even bat an eye, much to Peggy's relief.  The entire ordeal had simply wearied Peggy of lying, and it turned out that Angie was capable fielding much bigger plays than Peggy had guessed.

After three months, Dottie still hadn't turned up, Peggy was being considered for some top secret assignment in Los Angeles that Thompson was selling her as a plum but she suspected was a lemon, and the fact had crept up on Peggy that she was falling in love with Angie and that Angie didn't seem to mind that one bit.  As it happened, Angie was a part of Gloria's "Indian raiding party", herself.

So Peggy lived her life, and it was truly starting to feel as though she has stepped into that mythical promised land of True Normal.  Peggy would come home from work, sometimes grumbling about her job, and dig into Angie's superb cooking, and they went on dates on Fridays, and drank scotch on the rocks in their living room and slow danced together in their stocking feet on nights when they were too tired to go out.  They got around to making love in every room in the house (the library was among their favorites), and it was sweet and affectionate, and not at all like reaching into a bag full of broken glass.  It was the domestic bliss that Peggy had long assumed would elude her.  Even when she'd dared to hope that there might be a future for her and Steve, she hasn't imagined it would look much like this.

One evening, she came home to find a note from Angie perched on the scotch glasses, telling Peggy that she had been invited by Howard to go with him to hobnob with some Broadway director, and that she'd left some pasta and braciole for her in a pot on the stove.  Peggy smiled to herself; she'd never dreamed she'd come home to incredible Italian dinners all the time, but here she was.  Not only that, but Angie had known to leave the note on the scotch glasses because she knew that since Peggy was late getting home, a drink would be the first thing she'd want when she came in.

The food smelled delicious, the garlic, pork and tomato aromas wafting out of the pot.  But Angie knew her well already; she did want that drink first, so she poured it, and decided to stroll out onto the spacious, well-appointed living room balcony to enjoy what was left of the New York City sunset.

She pushed open the double doors and felt the early evening breezes, gentle and cool on her face.  The sky was turning russet along the shadowed skyline, with a few wisps of purplish cloud streaking along it.  She wouldn’t mind Los Angeles if Thompson ended up sending her, she thought, but New York was always going to be her first home in the States.  Its streets, its history, the memories she’d made in its concrete corridors, and of course, the simple fact that it produced both Steve and Angie… all of it anchored her heart here.

She walked slowly past the lounge chairs to the balcony railing, sipping her twelve year old scotch, when the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up.

Someone was behind her on the balcony.  She knew who, too.

“Have you come back for me, Dottie?” she asked, not turning around.  If she was going to be plugged, she wanted to die looking at the sunset over the city.

She heard quiet footsteps behind her, come softly up next to her.  “It’s not like that, Peggy.”

She recognized that voice.  That was the voice of the other Dottie, the third Dottie who she saw glimpses of, that she had come to care for.  No more daffy turnip truck routine.

She turned and looked at the woman standing beside her.  She was dressed in a black pantsuit, less expensive and fashionable than the one Peggy last saw her wearing.  Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and Peggy noticed she was wearing black ballet flats instead of normal street shoes.  She had a sniper rifle slung across her back.  She was still beautiful, Peggy thought.  She looked tired, and maybe a little haunted.  But there was no artifice, nothing false in the way she looked at Peggy.  She really didn’t seem to be here to kill her.

“So then,”  Peggy said at length. “What do you want?”

Dottie looked at her for a long time, like she was trying to decide how to say what she meant.  “I just … I just wanted to know if … if you’re happy with her.”

Peggy bit her lip and looked away.  It was literally the last thing she’d been expecting.  Then it occurred to her:  “Stay away from her, Dottie,” she warned, allowing enough menace to creep into her tone that Dottie would fully understand what would happen if she didn't.

Dottie shook her head.  “I told you, Peg.  It’s not like that.  I’m not here to hurt you, and I’m not here to hurt Angie either.”

Peggy took a deep breath before answering.  “Well then…. Yes, Dottie, actually, I am.  I’m quite happy.”  She searched Dottie’s face, trying to read it.  

“Good,” Dottie said after another pregnant silence.  “You seem happy.  I’m glad for you… for both of you.  Angie was always nice to me, you know.”

Peggy was still absorbing the fact that Dottie was standing here in front of her again, in such a different way than the last time.  

“I’m … I’m sorry it didn’t work out with us, Peg,” she went on.  “I know I was a lot of work.”

Peggy couldn’t help a rueful little chuckle.  “You also tried to kill me, you know.”

Dottie gave a sad little smile in reply.  “I told you, Peg, that wasn’t me trying.”

Peggy nodded, looking wry.  “Right, so you’ve said.”

Another awkward, sad silence.  Peggy’s body felt some nostalgia for everything that had passed between them not so very long ago; the blows, the nails scraping skin, the little bites that never quite healed right, the rough kisses, the tender lovemaking on the floor of her room, the awkward hand-holding in Gloria’s apartment... She hushed it quickly, and then Dottie spoke again.

“Also, Peg, I want you to know that everything I said to you that night was true.  Everything that they did to me in the Red Room, everything they made me do… I never told anyone those things before.”

Peggy felt like she’d been gut-punched.  She’d been right about that.  “You know I’m ready to do anything to make sure they never do to another girl what they did to you.”

Dottie smiled a stiff, pained smile.  “Of course you are.”  She looked out at the sky, which was growing more and more purple as the minutes passed, and looked back at Peggy.  “I am too, as you can imagine.  You and I, Peg… we’re never going to play for the same team, but I know we both want that.”

Peggy considered her for a moment.  "And what team are you playing for now, exactly?"

"My own," Dottie answered, without hesitation.

Peggy nodded and thought for a moment.  “Wait here,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.”  She walked across the balcony toward the double doors, her heels clicking on the terra cotta tile.  

“You’re not going inside to get a gun, are you?”  Dottie called after her.

Peggy stopped.  “What makes you think I haven’t got one on me now?”

Dottie almost looked happy for a moment.  “Alright, Peg.  I’m not going anywhere.”

Peggy went inside to her office and returned with a folder.  She dropped it on the table and flipped it open.  The photograph was of a young girl with blonde curls and serious eyes.  It was a very old photo, but there was no mistaking who it was, no mistaking that face.  

It was Dottie.

"I found this when I was there, in Russia."

Dottie's eyes went wide.  "Is that....?"

"Yours," Peggy replied.  "Your name is Tatiana Urakova.  You were born in Bogorodsk, on June 23rd, 1923."

"How about that? I always thought I was a Capricorn," Dottie remarked, staring curiously at the file, and Peggy wasn't sure if she was trying to be funny or not.

"Anyway, it isn't much, but, it's a place for you to start if you want to find the truth about yourself.  The rest," she added, rifling the papers, "is your medical records." She looked up at Dottie.  "You have a family history of thyroid trouble, you may want to get that checked when you hit your forties."

Another long pause, looking at each other through the haze of what might have been.  "Thanks, Peg," Dottie said at last.  She took the folder and tucked it into a satchel over her shoulder.  "You're the best friend I ever had," she said, and walked toward the railing of the balcony, throwing one leg over it to jump.

"You needn't make such a dramatic exit, you know," Peggy interrupted her, a note of urgency in her voice.  "Really, you can just take the elevator downstairs, it's fine."

She'd just as soon not watch Dottie take any more plunges.

"Thanks," Dottie answered sincerely, "but I'd rather not be seen by any building staff.  Besides, I'd hate to run into Angie and have it cause a problem for you."  

Peggy found this oddly touching.  She could see Dottie's eyes getting a bit glassy, and Peggy knew hers were welling up a bit too.  She didn't want to draw out this goodbye any longer than needed.  "Careful, Agent.  You're becoming sentimental."

Dottie's lip trembled slightly, but she didn't break.  "Same to you, Agent."

"And... Good luck with... Everything."

Dottie swung her other leg over the railing and now faced Peggy, clinging onto the other side of it.  "You too, Peggy."  And then she dove backwards, disappearing below the deck, and was gone.

 

 

******

 

 

Peggy concocted a reason to have Thompson officially call off the manhunt for Dottie.  

"It's a waste of resources," she argued. "She's not going to be found unless she wants to be. We just have to be ready for her when she turns up again."

Thompson grudgingly agreed, and closed the order.

About a week after Dottie's visit, Peggy started seeing some very interesting reports popping up regarding KGB facilities being raided. Thompson was getting phone calls from the State Department, where American diplomats were having conversations with very angry Russian ambassadors who were convinced that the SSR was involved.  Peggy was able to swear to him, of course, that she had no involvement in those ops.

However, it was interesting when she reviewed the intel on them; some of them were break-ins in which Russian officials were terribly cagey about what, if anything, might have been taken.  Some were arson. Some were forced entries that left a few dead bodies behind; usually just one or two very specific people, Peggy noted, like a certain physician, a certain scientist, a particular military commander or government apparatchik.  To satisfy her own curiosity, Peggy chased down what she could on the victims, and it seemed that most had some connection to some of the names mentioned in her stolen files; people involved to one degree or another with the funding and support of projects that eventually trickled back to the Red Room, or the research and development of its methods.

It seemed clear that Dottie intended to take the place apart, brick by blood-stained brick.  Peggy was content to pour herself a scotch and watch the show.

 

 

****

 

 

The tall, clear-eyed blonde looked around the dimly lit room that smelled of blood, vodka, and a few other things she preferred not to dwell on.  She kicked the limp, expiring body of the slick, designer-suited pimp on the floor.  "The KGB has no more business for you, Yevgeny," she told him.  

Calling him a pimp was being generous, since he and his associates had made a hefty side business of discreetly kidnapping girls as young as eight from orphanages and selling them to certain agents of the KGB, who were then funneling them to Leviathan for use in the Red Room program and associated research. Slave trader seemed more apt, she thought.

Whether he was aware of what the KGB was doing with the girls was irrelevant. He'd been operating in and around Nizhny Novgorod for twenty-five years, and it was twenty-five years too many.  Time to cut off the supply.

She saw the young girl in the corner, cowering behind a table and sobbing.  Dark eyes and pale skin, she couldn't have been much older than ten.

"It's alright, little one," she called out. "I'm not here to hurt you.  I came to hurt them." She gestured to the waste she'd lain; six thugs the world would never miss, laying in pools of their own blood.  

The little girl's dark eyes peered out from behind the table.

"Do you have a mother and father?"

The girl shook her head.

"You come from a state home, then?"

The girl nodded.

"Which one?"

"Galerkin-Nemerov," the little girl answered, so quietly that she was almost inaudible.

"It's a shit hole," the blonde observed calmly.  She knew what went on in that place, and she’d burn it to the ground if she had a place to put all of its children.  "You don't want to go back, do you?"

The little girl shook her head no.

The blonde nodded thoughtfully.  "Of course you don't." She walked over to the little girl and held out a gloved hand. "You should come with me."

The girl took her hand, and slowly, with shaking legs, crept out from behind the table.

The blonde reached into her satchel and found an extra sweater that would be far too big on the girl, but would do for now.  She draped it around her shoulders.  Then she knelt down and pulled a very small pistol from her boot, and showed it to her.  "Do you know how to use this?"

The little girl shook her head.

"I'll teach you.  A girl should know how to protect herself."

The girl's eyes were wide, but she nodded and put the pistol into the large pocket of her dress.  

The tall blonde stood and took the little girl's still-trembling hand.  As they walked toward the exit, she asked the little girl, "What's your name?"

"Regina."

"That's a very nice name. It means queen, you know."

The little girl hung on to her sure, steady grip.  "What's your name?" she asked her rescuer.

The tall, clear-eyed blonde glanced down at her, opening the door onto the chilly night.  "It's Tatiana.  But you may call me Tati."

They stepped out together, into the slowly falling snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for riding along with me on this heavy lift. 
> 
> Look for some cutting-room floor stuff at some point after I catch my breath; you've got some dance studio smut coming your way, probably, as well as some fluff in which things end a bit differently and Peggy and Dottie get a happily ever after. 
> 
> I am currently two chapters in on a follow up to this fic, about Dottie on the run, doing a Jason Bourne-style "hunt for who she truly is" type of of story, taking apart the Red Room, Leviathan, parts of the KGB, and whoever else might happen to stand in her way. It's called "Red Rooms, Black Nights," and it lives here:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4968277/chapters/11409592
> 
>  
> 
> xoxo,  
> sexghosts


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